Black Firefighters Suit Against New Haven Rejected

City of New Haven

Firefighter Michael Briscoe's suit against New Haven was dismissed yesterday by a U.S. District Court judge. The suit claimed that the language in a 2003 promotional exam was biased against Briscoe and other black firefighters, preventing him from becoming a lieutenant. This comes after the reverse discrimination suit the New Haven fire department, Ricci v. DeStefano, where 20 Connecticut firefighters (white and Hispanic) sued the department for throwing out the results of the test because no black firefighters scored high enough.

The Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, in the plaintiffs' favor in Ricci v. DeStefano (Justice Sonia Sotomayor was part of the dissent and was also part of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision to uphold a federal court ruling in favor of the city). The case was sent back for resolution to the Federal District Court in New Haven. However, Briscoe filed his own lawsuit before the court had a second chance to review the case. Briscoe claims he learned he was the top oral scorer out of 77 lieutenant hopefuls, and should have been slated for one of seven promotions. But the oral section is worth only 40% of the grade, and Briscoe did not score high enough on the written section of the exam to make him eligible for promotion.

The District Court judge said he would issue a memo explaining his reasoning for dismissing the suit, but the city's corporation council Victor Bolden said, “The decision confirms what should be a basic principle of law: a municipality should not be held liable for following a ruling of the United States Supreme Court."

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By Jaya Saxena in News on April 22, 2010 2:19 PM

Comments [rss]

inoyourider

There was an article in the Times with questions from the actual test.

The questions had to do with specific firefighting techniques, and I think some calculations.

Nothing to do with race.

This suit, and most like it, is complete shit.

Tar_Baby

Not ONE black firefighter got a high written score?

Is there a reason for this?

Eugene

They were counting on EOE?

MT

Can anyone give an example about how a written test can be biased? This has always puzzled me. I thought a written test was simply a standardized way to test if someone has the required knowledge. If it's for a firefighter I would assume it tests to see if you have the required knowledge to fight fires. How can you possible stack that more in one races favor over another?

fuboy

If it's anything like the city kids saying the standardized state test is biased a while ago, then it could be something a simple as a wording problem.

For instance, in the school kids case, there was a problem on the test along the lines of "There are five rows of corn with six stalks in each row. How many corn stalks are there?" And the students, teachers and school administrators thought that was biased because they didn't know what a corn stalk was.

Now, they didn't need to know what a corn stalk was to solve the problem, but because the question didn't say "There are five subway cars with six bums in each" they felt it was an unreasonable question.

Either way, the end result is a student that can't past a standardized test. Call it what you will, but it's just an individual's failure being blamed on a community.

http://gothamist.com/2009/10/20/why_harlem_kids_went_to_the_queens.php