Affirmative Action and the New Haven Fire Department
- Submitted by: casablanca
- Views: 2438
- Category: Politics: Moral Issues
- Date Submitted: 04/07/2010 02:02 PM
- Pages: 13
- Report this Essay
Affirmative Action and the New Haven Fire Department
| |
The Ricci v. DeStefano case
At the New Haven fire department, fifteen positions were made vacant, and thus, needed to be filled; eight lieutenants and seven captains.[i] IO Solutions, Inc (IOS), a firm experienced in test production, was contracted by the City at the cost of $100, 000 to create and administer exams in order to assess which employees could best fulfil the two different positions.[ii] The tests, as determined by the City’s firefighters’ union, would comprise of two sections; one which would be conducted orally and would account for forty percent of the grade, and a second which would be in the form of a multiple-choice written exam and would account for the remaining sixty percent.[iii] The IOS team, led by Chad Legel, in order to assure that the exams were fair, i.e non-discriminatory, and relevant to the firefighters of New Haven, effectuated extensive “job analyses to identify the tasks, knowledge, skills, and abilities essential for the lieutenant and captain positions, using interviews, on-the-job observations, and questionnaires.”[iv] In analysing the two positions, there was an intentional oversampling of minorities to ensure that they were well accounted for, and that there was no unintended bias against them.[v] Subsequently, a list was produced enumerating the reading materials which would be utilized in the creation of the written and oral exams (for both positions), and was relayed to the concerned firefighters to help them prepare for the examination.[vi] While the written tests were intended to inspect the candidates’ theoretical understanding of what the positions entailed, the oral examinations concentrated more heavily on the assessment of the candidates’ incident-command skills and firefighting tactics.[vii] To evaluate the oral examination, a panel of...
| |
The Ricci v. DeStefano case
At the New Haven fire department, fifteen positions were made vacant, and thus, needed to be filled; eight lieutenants and seven captains.[i] IO Solutions, Inc (IOS), a firm experienced in test production, was contracted by the City at the cost of $100, 000 to create and administer exams in order to assess which employees could best fulfil the two different positions.[ii] The tests, as determined by the City’s firefighters’ union, would comprise of two sections; one which would be conducted orally and would account for forty percent of the grade, and a second which would be in the form of a multiple-choice written exam and would account for the remaining sixty percent.[iii] The IOS team, led by Chad Legel, in order to assure that the exams were fair, i.e non-discriminatory, and relevant to the firefighters of New Haven, effectuated extensive “job analyses to identify the tasks, knowledge, skills, and abilities essential for the lieutenant and captain positions, using interviews, on-the-job observations, and questionnaires.”[iv] In analysing the two positions, there was an intentional oversampling of minorities to ensure that they were well accounted for, and that there was no unintended bias against them.[v] Subsequently, a list was produced enumerating the reading materials which would be utilized in the creation of the written and oral exams (for both positions), and was relayed to the concerned firefighters to help them prepare for the examination.[vi] While the written tests were intended to inspect the candidates’ theoretical understanding of what the positions entailed, the oral examinations concentrated more heavily on the assessment of the candidates’ incident-command skills and firefighting tactics.[vii] To evaluate the oral examination, a panel of...