An article today in the Chicago Tribune outlines remedies and penalties for the City of Chicago and the Chicago Fire Department in a battle over a hiring exam that took place in 1995.
A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the Chicago Fire Department must hire 111 African Americans who passed a firefighters entrance exam 16 years ago and pay millions of dollars to thousands more who took and passed the same test.
The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling was the latest blow to the city, which has been on the losing end of court decisions regarding the 1995 test for years, including a 2005 ruling by a federal judge who said the test discriminated against black applicants and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that the candidates did not wait too long to sue the city.
An attorney for the black firefighter candidates said that the 111 jobs would be filled from the applicants who passed the 1995 test and their pensions would be adjusted as if they’d been firefighters since 1995. And, said Joshua Karsh, 6,000 others who also passed the test will divide “tens of millions of dollars” that would have been paid 111 firefighters from 1995 until today.
… the city was still calculating the damages as result of dividing the back pay of 111 firefighters among the 6,000 applicants, but that officials estimate the payout will be about $30 million.
The ruling stems from a test given in 1995. After the test, anyone who scored 64 or below was deemed not qualified, but officials told those who scored above that number that while they passed, they would randomly hire the top 1,800 who scored 89 or better.
Because only 11 percent of the African Americans scored 89 or better, the overwhelming number of applicants hired from that test were white.
Read the complete article HERE.
