The United States Department of Justice filed a civil rights suit against New York City yesterday over the Fire Department?s written entrance exam, which black and Hispanic candidates fail at much higher rates than whites. The suit claims that the city has never proved a link between test scores and performance as a firefighter. The suit is the latest in a series of legal attempts going back decades to diversify the Fire Department, which is more than 90 percent white. Three percent of the department?s 11,000 firefighters are black and 4.5 percent are Hispanic, a tiny proportion in a city where more than half the population is black or Hispanic.
See "Justice Dept. Sues New York City, Citing Bias in Hiring Firefighters", Andy Newman, The New York Times, May 21, 2007