The “New Haven 20” Firefighters to Receive $2 Million Settlement in Discrimination Case

CNN reports that, “After seven years of wrangling in a case that altered workplace discrimination law, 20 firefighters will receive a $2 million payout from the city of New Haven, Connecticut.

“The compensation dates back to a 2009 Supreme Court decision that found the city discriminated against white firefighters when it threw out the results of promotion exams in 2004.”

See full story: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/07/29/connecticut.firefighters.lawsuit/index.html?iref=allsearch

Former Chief-of-Department Augustus Beekman on The Merit System

Augustus Beekman (March 28, 1923 – November 29, 2008) pictured above, served as both Chief-of-Department and Fire Commissioner in his long tenure with the FDNY.

He was the 23^rd Fire Commissioner and the 2^nd African-American Fire Commissioner in the history of the FDNY and was an ardent supporter of the Civil Service Merit System.

In Peter Micheels book, Braving the Flames, Chief Beekman wrote, “Once I was in the Fire Service I became aware of the promotion structure. I felt it was possible to make the Fire Department a career, not just a job. You could advance on your merit, and I made the decision relatively early to try to do so...In those days blacks had a better chance of making in the civil service than in the public sector, and I was in a department wherein the promotion process seemed to be as objective as it could be - and I still think it is – because it didn’t involve your name or an evaluation. All you had to do was take an exam, and based on marks and seniority, a list of promotions was published. It was all out front, there was no subjectivity in it – no interviews where you might run into cultural bias or any of that.”

Like many of the men who got on the FDNY in the wake of WW II, Chief Beekman cherished and supported the merit system, for the same reasons everyone else did – because it offered a system by which people were judged on the OBJECTIVE criteria of an exam and NOT the subjective parameters of an interview.

The civil service merit system is still the same one that Chief Beekman praised, even though the standards applied at each level have been watered down since his time.

JMK

Two Recent Letters in the New York Daily News Highlight Quotas....

Testing, testing

Wading River, L.I.: The primary purpose of the upcoming FDNY entrance exam should be to find the highest-scoring applicants regardless of gender or ethnicity. Residency bonuses should be stopped. New hires should be based on what they can do, not on what they look like or where they live.

Stephen L. Letscher Jr.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/07/22/2011-07-22_voice_of_the_people_july_22.html?page=1

Dumb and dumber

Staten Island: The editorial "Testing, testing" (July 19) said the new FDNY entrance exam "will for the first time include video and audio questions, a step apparently designed to equalize between applicants who read well enough to do the job and applicants who have reading skills far beyond those that are necessary." Does that sound like a policy in the public's best interest? The 2007 exam was written at an eighth-grade level, and the tests are infamous for non-challenging questions. That the Vulcans call such exams biased is insulting to their race, and their push to dumb them down even more speaks volumes about how little faith they have in black candidates' abilities and how little they think of public safety.

Joseph M. Kearney

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/letters/index.html?page=2

Just How “DUMBED-Down” is “Smart Enough?”

A recent NY Daily News editorial (“New Fire Department Test Must Measure Valid Qualifications,” July 19^th) about the upcoming FDNY Entrance Exam (#2000) has THIS rather disturbing sentence; (the exam) “will for the first time include video and audio questions, a step apparently designed to equalize between applicants who read well enough to do the job and applicants who have reading skills far beyond those that are necessary.”

WHAT?!

“Equalize those who can read “well enough to do the job,” and those “with reading skills far beyond those that are necessary?”

So. . .“The most highly qualified NEED NOT Apply?!”

Does that sound like a policy that’s even close to being in the public’s best interest?

Let’s be clear here, the 2007 exam was written at a mere 7^th GRADE reading level, for a job that purports to require a 12^th Grade reading level (via a HS diploma)! And the FDNY Entrance Exam is one that has been historically infamous for ridiculously non-challenging questions like one showing four aspects of a conventional gas gauge (full, half-full, one-quarter and three-quarters) and asking, “Which one indicates half full?” It should also be noted that over 50% of the questions on the 2007 exam were subjective (opinion-based) questions.

The fact that the Vulcan Society's leadership thinks that such exams are “discriminatory against blacks" is more than insulting to their own race and the fact that they’d like to see such exams “dumbed down” even further, speaks volumes about BOTH how little faith they have in the abilities of black candidates and even worse, how little they seem to care about public safety.

JMK