ST. LOUIS • A black firefighters organization and the city of St. Louis have settled a 2015 lawsuit over disputed promotion exams.
The settlement, filed in U.S. District Court in St. Louis Tuesday, was designed to ensure that future promotional exams for captain and battalion chief positions “do not unlawfully discriminate against any promotional candidate or candidates on the basis of race.” It also seeks to make the exam process transparent with a goal of ensuring that future exams “are perceived ... as valid, fair, and nondiscriminatory.”
The original suit, filed in 2015 by more than 130 black firefighters and the Firefighters Institute for Racial Equality, claimed that the promotional exam was racially discriminatory, particularly as it applied to candidates for captain.
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Joe D. Jacobson, one of the lawyers who filed the lawsuit, called the settlement a “major” development. He said the tests had been a “constant problem over the years,” adding that with one exception, “every test given in the last 25 years resulted in litigation.”
The settlement says that the fire department will continue to use a list of candidates that passed the disputed 2013 promotional exam until new exams can be held sometime in the second half of 2018.
All candidates will be given a chance to thoroughly prepare for the exam, with informational sessions and sample questions.
Multiple-choice sections of the exam will be pass-fail, and if firefighters are given oral board exercises scored by a panel, two of the four panel members will be black, the settlement says.
Candidates will also have the right to appeal.
