Justice Department asks court to fix "disparate" civil service exams for minority applicants

Post Standard: Syracuse NY ^ | John O'Brien

[Behind Liberal Lines]

SYRACUSE, NY - The U.S. Department of Justice wants to reopen a 33-year-old court case to ensure that minority applicants get a fair shot at jobs as Syracuse firefighters and police officers.

Lawyers with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division filed papers in federal court Friday challenging the state civil service tests that prospective firefighters and police officers must take.

A review by the Justice Department of entry-level exams for those jobs in Syracuse showed the exams "continue to have a statistically significant, disparate impact on African-American test-takers," the Justice Department's lawyers wrote in court papers.

The Justice Department asked U.S. District Judge David Hurd to reopen a 1980 court case over the city's hiring practices.

The Justice Department hired a human resources expert, David P. Jones, president of Growth Ventures Inc., to review the civil service exams. Among his findings was that the exams were "more likely to produce an adverse impact on ethnic minorities," court papers said.

The Justice Department asked the court to require the state's Department of Civil Service "to develop and institute lawful written examinations to be used in Syracuse's selection of entry-level firefighter and police officers."

Hurd will hear arguments on the request will Oct. 11.

City officials will join in the Justice Department's request, Mayor Stephanie Miner said today.

"For three decades the city has steadily made progress in assuring that the ranks of our police and fire departments more truly reflect all of Syracuse," Miner said in a news release. "An evaluation of the state Civil Service test would assure we have a fair test and the best pool of talent from which to hire."

The city maintains its hiring practices have met the goals of the consent decree, but "nonetheless welcomes this opportunity to improve the provisions of the consent decree to reflect current hiring conditions," Miner said.

When city officials settled a reverse discrimination lawsuit last year, they said they'd been talking with Justice Department officials about rewording the 1980 decree to ensure that black firefighters filled fill a higher proportion of supervisory positions.

[exDemMom]

This is a tacit admission that blacks are, indeed, lower achievers (which is CULTURAL and not race-based) than whites and that the only way to support the desired outcome in hiring/promotion is to dumb the tests down so they can pass.

And that is exactly why affirmative action programs are so destructive to those whom they supposedly help. My solution would not be to dumb anything down, but to work on improving the culture. When minorities embrace a culture that celebrates success and achievement, then they will do well on the exams.

[1010RD]

Wasn’t Jimmy Carter still President 33 years ago?

[1010RD]

For three decades the city has steadily made progress in assuring that the ranks of our police and fire departments more truly reflect all of Syracuse

By what statistical quirk would you expect every job classification to be evenly and equally distributed by race (a wholly arbitrary classification - see BH Obama)?

[Robert A Cook PE]

Did Holder run the Waco murders for Janet Reno?