First white firefighters sued. Now it’s a black firefighter’s turn.
Michael Briscoe (pictured), a firefighter with the Engine 8 fire station on Whitney Avenue, filed a complaint against the City of New Haven on Thursday morning in U.S. District Court in Connecticut. He argues that he was unfairly denied promotion to lieutenant because of the way that the city scored its 2003 promotional exam for firefighters.
The complaint alleges that the city weighs the oral and written components of the exam differently from how other cities do, in a way that has a disparate impact on African-Americans and resulted in Briscoe being denied promotion. Read the complaint here.
Briscoe’s complaint comes just three months after a U.S. Supreme Court decision that the city had discriminated against a group of white firefighters when it threw out the results of that same 2003 exam. That case was brought by firefighter Frank Ricci and a mostly white group of fellow firemen. The case caught national attention during the Supreme Court session and the subsequent confirmation hearings of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who had heard the case in the appeals court.
The Ricci case is in the process of being transferred back to New Haven following the Supreme Court’s decision. The city is awaiting a local court decision before promoting any lieutenants.
The reason Briscoe is suing now, rather than suing earlier: He had to wait to find out the results of the test. Briscoe states that he topped the field on the oral section, but not on the written.
(City Hall says it has not “publicly released results containing any names or identifiers that would allow test takers to identify which score belonged to” whom.)
Briscoe’s seven-page complaint, filed by attorney David Rosen, seeks promotion to the rank of lieutenant along with “appropriate monetary compensation, including back pay.” Or, instead of promoting Briscoe, the city should use “a nondiscriminatory selection system to make promotions,” the complaint argues.
“The basic point of the complaint is that the way that the two parts of the test were weighted made the test worse as a way to pick lieutenants,” said attorney Rosen, contacted by phone on Thursday.
The written component of the city’s test was weighted as 60 percent of the total score and the oral component as 40 percent. This breakdown stems from a 1986 decision between the city and the firefighters union, Rosen said.
A 60/40 weighting has been shown to have a disparate impact on African-American test-takers, the complaint alleges. “That’s been the experience in New Haven and elsewhere,” Rosen said.
The norm for promotional exams is to weight oral portion of the exam at 70 percent, according to the complaint. The document further states the city knew the test would have a disparate impact when it decided to weight it 60/40.
Oral exams are a fairer and more accurate way to judge the skills of a firefighter, the complaint argues. A heavily weighted written component places the emphasis on memorization and “therefore rewarded cramming,” the complaint states.
“The differences between the written test and the oral exam disadvantaged a candidate, like the plaintiff, who had diligently studied and learned all the material taught during years of on-the-job experience and extensive in-service training, compared to one who did little until the run-up to the exam but then memorized the facts that were included in the assigned written materials,” states the complaint.
Although Briscoe had the highest score in the department on the oral section of the exam, he ended up 24th overall: not high enough for a promotion.
He would have been promoted “if it had been scored in a sensible way,” said Rosen. A weighting of even 60 percent oral to 40 percent written would have given Briscoe a top score, making him eligible for promotion.
If the exam had been weighted like other city’s exams, more African-Americans would have been among the top scorers, according to the complaint. It states, “If the oral exam were weighted 70 percent — the norm for public safety agencies across America — the plaintiff would be ranked fourth, and three African-Americans instead of none would be in the top 12.”
The city’s actions with regard to the exam amount to a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the complaint concludes.
When visited at his Whitney Avenue firehouse on Thursday, Briscoe declined to comment on his suit.
Responding to the complaint, city Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden issued the following statement: “Since the day of the Supreme Court decision, the City of New Haven has been focused on moving forward not backwards. As soon as the matter returns to the United States District Court, the City will be seeking to certify the results of the New Haven Fire Department promotional examinations administered in 2003 and make promotions consistent with that list. Further, the City will continue to pursue better means for making future promotions in the Department.”
Reached by phone on Thursday, attorney Bolden said that the city would like to making sure that future tests are fair and unbiased, but that it is not interested in revisiting the results of the 2003 exam.
“The city is focused on the future,” Bolden said. “The best way to move forward is to certify the test results.”
Bolden acknowledged that the certification of the test results is “against Briscoe’s position.” But he said that the city is willing to ensure that future tests are conducted in a non-discriminatory way. “We think that makes sense,” Bolden said.
Asked if the Briscoe case is headed for the Supreme Court, Bolden laughed. “I have no idea what will happen in terms of future litigation.”