Fighting Fire Over Test Of Skin Colour

NEW York City has been charged with discrimination against blacks and Hispanics looking to join the fire department.

The US Department of Justice says a written exam prevents many blacks and Hispanics, who comprise more than half the citys population, from joining the fire department, which is 93 per cent white.

The case follows decades of lobbying by a group representing black firemen, the Vulcan Society.

"We are focusing on the written exam, because the written exam is the thing that eliminates blacks and minorities the most. I think everybody knows standardised tests affect blacks more than they do whites,"says longstanding Vulcan member, Michael Marshall, a lieutenant at Brooklyns Carnarsie fire station. He said the exam was used to eliminate non-white applicants. "Basically its reading comprehension. It has absolutely nothing to do with how good a firefighter you will be."

That is a claim endorsed by the Justice Department in its writ against the city, and supported also by a lawyer with the Centre for Constitutional Rights, Shayana Kadidal, who has spent five years on the Vulcans case.

Mr Kadidal said blacks failed the test, which has a pass score of 70, at five times the rate whites did, and they were far less likely to score in the top ranges. "Because the tests, which have no valid relationship to job skills, weed out blacks and Latinos their use is illegal."

He said that every fire department in the country was more diverse than New Yorks. Fire departments in Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago for example, were between 30 per cent and 50 per cent minorities, while in New York just 2.9 per cent of firefighters were black.

He said the city had refused several attempts at mediation sponsored by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and had only itself to blame for the case.

In its response to the Justice Department, New York City said the exam and selection were job related and "consistent with business necessity". It denied any pattern of discrimination existed.

The City said publicity for its latest test resulted in three times as many African-American candidates. The results from this redesigned test are not known, but academic requirements have also been scaled back to a high school diploma.

New York employment chief Georgia Pestana said the allegations were outdated and concerned with tests run in 1999 and 2002, rather than the latest test, but there was no evidence of discrimination in any case.

"The City intends to defend this case vigorously," she said in a statement.

Working sometimes as the the only black in a crew of 14 men "you have this problem of being isolated, even if youre not", Mr Marshall says.

"Even though all of them are nice guys, you still feel that separation."

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