Dept. of Justice Sues Jacksonville Florida for Discrimination

Dept. of Justice Sues City, JFRD for Discrimination
Tuesday, April 24th, 2012, 4:28pm -- FirstCoastNews


The U.S. justice department has sued the City of Jacksonville Florida and the Jacksonville Association of Firefighters for discrimination over its exams for firefighters.

The suit states that the defendants engaged in racial discrimination against black firefighters seeking promotion.

An outside firm was used to "create" the tests prior to 2011, when a different firm was hired.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The United States Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the city of Jacksonville and the Jacksonville Association of Firefighters.

The DOJ filed the suit saying the entities engaged in racial discrimination against black firefighters seeking promotion.

According to the lawsuit filed in federal court on Monday, the department believes that a written test given to the firefighters attempting to climb the ranks is to blame for the "statistically significantly lower" number of black applicants advancing to higher ranks. Ranks in question include District Chief (Suppression), Captain (Suppression), Lieutenant (Suppression) and Engineer.

Now the DOJ is asking for a court order to stop the city and fire department from using the written examinations in question and force it to redefine the selection processes it uses for promotions. It also seeks "make-whole relief" for those firefighters already negatively impacted by the promotional process, including back pay, retroactive seniority and even promotions.

"This complaint should send a clear message to all public employers that employment practices that have the effect of excluding qualified candidates on account of race will not be tolerated," said Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. "At best, these tests measure only a slice of what is necessary to be a supervisor, but they stand in the way of qualified African-Americans advancing in the fire department. The Justice Department will take all necessary action to ensure that such discriminatory practices are eliminated and that the victims of such practices are made whole."

I read something similiar to this a few years ago. Many of the blacks were claiming that some of the test questions were biased and racist There were also people that filed discrimination because they had to be able to swim in order to be considered.


SMH

reply to post by xuenchen


No surprise!!! This is just like a case that Obama, as a young civil rights attorney, worked while he was in Chicago.

A court order, finalized on Wednesday, instructs the Chicago Fire Department to add 111 black firefighters by March 2012.

The order, presented by U.S. District Court Judge Joan Gotschall, stems from a civil rights case that has made its way through trial and federal court. The lawsuit alleged that the Chicago Fire Department used discriminatory practices in its evaluation of scores for a 1995 entrance exam.

This May, a federal appeals court ruled that CFD must hire 111 African Americans who passed the exam in 1995.

The employments serve as part of the overall plan to pay at least $30 million in damages to some 6,000 plaintiffs in the case.

Source: www.nbcchicago.com...

That lawsuit was filed and worked by Davis, Miner, Barnhill and Galland. Obama's employer from 1993 to 2004.

But… there wasn’t someone telling them they could not advance solely due to the color of their skin. It was a test administered by a third-party company. To make things even harder for Perez and Obama to justify in this post-racial era is that it appears more than one testing service was used for some of the testing.

The union is named, by the way, because they are included in setting up the testing process. And, so as to add a conspiratorial air to the issue, there are allegations that the union is cheating and showing favoritism to its white members.

Justice appears to think the written tests are too arbitrary and “not sufficiently job-related.”

Project 21 spokesman Horace Cooper has a different take on the cause. Maybe it goes back further. Maybe the culprit is a poor public teaching regime and not a corrupt fire department that is holding some people back – black and white and any other race – when it comes to something like test comprehension. Horace says:

While the Supreme Court has upheld in the early ‘70s the ability of people to claim discrimination merely because they don’t do well on work place tests, it is really time to reassess whether that should continue. The problem isn’t the workplace tests, the problem is poor public schools that don’t prepare minority students for competition. Why do we not acknowledge that rather than punish employers?

www.conservativeblog.org...



To add:

"Unfortunately, the truth is that our government schools are doing a worse job than most parents would dare to imagine. Not only are most of our high school students completely unprepared for college, the reality is that most of them have not even been equipped with the necessary skills that they need to function at a very basic level in the real world. Today, a surprising number of high school students are simply unable to fill out a job application, write a readable essay or balance a checkbook"

this is a good article to read, and it should be concerning. thetruthwins.com...