Diversity In Firefighting

Is Being Saved By A "Diverse" Fireman Important?

Post below lifted from Discriminations. See the original for links

Last May the Justice Department sued New York City because its fire department was not suitably "diverse." The city replied that by the time of the suit the exam given to applicants had already changed. As the New York Post reports in this editorial, "no kidding." The latest test-takers were given questions such as:

"As a rookie firefighter, you are responsible for cleaning the kitchen. At the beginning of your shift, you find the kitchen area is a mess. And there is a bowl of chili spilled on the floor from the firefighters from the previous shift. The reason the kitchen was left in such a mess is due to the previous crew having gone out on a call to a fire during their dinner, and they are still actively fighting the fire. "Do you:

"1) Clean the mess up.

"2) Clean the mess up, but complain to anyone who will listen.

"3) Refuse to clean the mess up.

"4) Clean everything except the spilled chili.

"5) Wait for everyone from the previous shift to return, yell at them that they should have cleaned up the mess."

Candidates who took the exam were asked this question, and after each possible answer, instructed to put an "a" through "e" desirability rating - where "a" is "highly desirable" and "e" is "highly undesirable." Eighty-eight of the exam's 195 questions accepted multiple answers as correct. Five questions accepted three answers. Another accepted every answer.

Mayor Bloomberg and Fire Commissioner Nick Scoppetta recently announced that 38% of those who passed the test this year are minorities, nearly three times the rate of those who passed the 2002 test. Given questions such as the one quoted above, I'm not sure how much progress this represents.