Chicago Fire Department Must Hire 111 African-American Firefighters

By Soyoung Kwak in News on May 14, 2011 4:00PM

The seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that the Chicago Fire Department must hire 111 African-American firefighters who passed the entrance exam 16 years ago, as well as pay a large sum of money to some of the people who took the exam and passed it. This case has been an ongoing issue for the city of Chicago and isn't the first court ruling regarding the controversial firefighter entrance test from 1995. A federal judge ruled back in 2005 that the test discriminated against black applicants. Additionally, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the applicants were still eligible to sue the city for the incident in 1995.

A little background on the case reveals that the city of Chicago indicated that anyone who passed with a score above a 64 on the exam in 1995 was qualified to become a firefighter. The city then established an additional criteria, telling those applicants who scored above a 64 that the city would hire, at random, candidates who had scored above 89 points. Only 11% of African Americans scored an 89 or better on the exam, so most of the firefighters who were hired after the 1995 exam were Caucasian.

Now that there is a final decision on the case, the Chicago Fire Department will be hiring the new firefighters from the pool of applicants who passed the exam in 1995. The firefighter test in Chicago is now a "pass/fail" test, and the city expects to hire the new firefighters relatively soon.