Black and Hispanic Firefighter Applicants Have Doubled

The New York Times
By JOHN ELIGON and DIANE CARDWELL
Published: November 28, 2007

The Fire Department’s pool of black and Hispanic job candidates has more than doubled since 2002, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday, raising hopes that efforts to hire more minority firefighters might be yielding results.
The announcement came six months after the United States Justice Department sued the city, charging that the written firefighter entrance exam screened out a disproportionate number of blacks and Hispanics.
Slightly more than 30 percent of the 4,000 applicants scoring highest on this year’s exam were black or Hispanic, compared with just under 14 percent in 2002, the last time the test was given. There were also three times as many women in this year’s top 4,000.
The results are significant, city officials said, because the top 4,000 applicants are the most likely to be hired. The cutoff score to make that list this year was 96.77 percent.
Mayor Bloomberg called the results “a promising new sign” for the Fire Department, which has faced intense scrutiny over its lack of diversity.
“Making the world’s greatest fire department more reflective of the city that it serves has been one of our toughest and most long-standing challenges,” Mr. Bloomberg said at a news conference with Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta and Martha K. Hirst, the commissioner of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, which creates and administers the exam.
“The bigger the pool of people that you can pick from, the better the people that you pick are going to be, on average,” Mr. Bloomberg said.
But John Coombs, a Brooklyn firefighter who is the president of the Vulcan Society, an organization of black firefighters, called the results all “smoke screen and mirrors.”
“When we start looking at minimal efforts, when we accept them, that becomes the standards,” he said. “We don’t accept that standard.”
There are 11,621 firefighters, but just 666 of them are Hispanic, 337 are black and 75 Asian-American, for a total of 9.3 percent, city officials said. Thirty-one are women.
The Justice Department declined to comment yesterday about how, or if, the test results would have any affect on the lawsuit.
The entrance exam is offered about once every four years. This year, it focused on a broader array of skills than in years past, Ms. Hirst said. She said that the changes to the exam, administered in January, had nothing to do with the Justice Department lawsuit, which was filed in May.
“The test does not require specialized knowledge,” Ms. Hirst said. “It is a test of basic aptitude and ability to become a firefighter.”
More than 22,000 people took this year’s exam. Of the more than 21,000 who passed — meaning they scored at least 70 percent — 38 percent were black, Hispanic, Asian-American or American Indian.
City officials also said that their attempts to bring more women into the ranks were bearing fruit. This year, 1,401 women applied to the department, up from 878 in 2002, with 770 of them passing, a 50 percent increase from 2002. Of those, 109 made it to the top 4,000, up from 33.
Last year, the Fire Department expanded its recruitment and diversity unit, and in May, it began a $1.4 million recruitment campaign to highlight aspects of the job other than fighting fires, like salaries, benefits and flexible schedules. [To read the entire article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/28/nyregion/28fire.html?ex=1353906000&en=e22773af5eded4dc&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss ]