Say Trial Not Necessary Vulcans Ask Court to Rule Fire Tests Discriminatory

Say Trial Not Necessary
Vulcans Ask Court to Rule Fire Tests Discriminatory

The Chief-Leader/Adrienne Haywood-James SAYS FACTS ARE CLEAR: Vulcan Society attorney Anjana Samant believes that the group has produced enough evidence for U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis to rule against the city in the Federal lawsuit contending that the 1999 and 2002 written Firefighter exams violated the Civil Rights Act by having a disparate impact on minority candidates. At far right is Vulcan President John Coombs.

Lawyers for the Vulcan Society of black firefighters March 19 moved for summary judgment in the U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit against the city alleging that the 1999 and 2002 written Firefighter exams were rigged to weed out African-American candidates.

The Vulcan Society is an intervening plaintiff in the DOJ case, which charged that the two exams were racially discriminatory and violated the Civil Rights Act. As of October 2007, the Vulcans have said, 10 percent of the city's 11,000 firefighters were black or Latino, while Fire Departments in Boston, Philadelphia and Los Angeles are between 40 and 50 percent minority.

'Disparate Impact on Blacks'

The intervening plaintiffs believed that several months' worth of submitting evidence and hearing depositions from witnesses produced enough reason for U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis to rule against the city without the case going to trial.

"The city's experts in their deposition testimony have agreed that the test has a disparate impact on black test-takers," said Anjana Samant, a Center for Constitutional Rights attorney representing the Vulcans. "The city's own witnesses that it offered on how they designed the test make very clear that the folks who made the test had no experience or expertise in designing these kinds of exams."

Before entering the Brooklyn Federal courthouse, Ms. Samant ex- plained that the Equal Employment Practices Commission in 1999 submitted a report to the city saying that the 1999 Firefighter test had a discriminatory impact.

JOHN COOMBS: Doesn't see change.

"This agency went to FDNY, they went to different people in the city administration and said 'You guys really need to look into this,' and the city did nothing," she said.

Question Relevance to Job

The Vulcans contend that the written tests under challenge did not actually evaluate whether an applicant was ready to be trained as a Firefighter. They also contend that agencies such as the Police Department and the Emergency Medical Service are more diverse because they focus more on physical than cognitive testing.

Ms. Samant did not expect a decision until this week. If the judge does not grant summary judgment to the plaintiffs, the trial will begin with oral arguments on April 13.

"We really want the city to take a look, sit down and come with an exam that is actually going to [produce] the best potential Firefighter from the applicant pool," Ms. Samant said. "There are folks who took the exam and either were not hired because they were so far down on the list or they didn't get hired [until] two or three years later. So we would like back pay, the potential to be hired, and basically damages for folks who took the test and unfairly didn't do so well."

The city has argued that the FDNY is becoming more diverse. As a result of increased minority recruiting, the city announced in December 2007 that 38 percent of the 21,183 applicants who passed the written exam for Firefighter administered in January of that year were minorities and that 33 percent of the top 4,000 scorers, meaning those most likely to be appointed, were minorities. The FDNY has also boasted that its last class of Probationary Firefighters was 35 percent minority, the most diverse in its history.

Vulcan Society President John Coombs said before the hearing last week that such numbers did not amount to significant change.

"Until all those people are hired they really can't say how successful they are," he said of the minority candidates on the current Firefighter list. "We're still waiting for the end product."

Firefighter Coombs noted that such an outcome will not come soon, as the current fiscal crisis has resulted in budget cuts to the FDNY, which has not yet scheduled any new Fire Academy classes and plans to reduce headcount through attrition.

"How convenient," he said.