By Janon Fisher
The New York Post
NEW YORK — A federal judge in Brooklyn has given the city the go-ahead to hire a new class of Fire Academy recruits — but ordered that the hiring be done in a way that does not discriminate against minorities.
Several options were presented by Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who had ruled the last three entrance exams were biased.
They are:
- Randomly selecting enrollees from the top 2,500 scorers on the last test. To increase the pool of black and Hispanic candidates, the city would eliminate the lowest-scoring whites in the group and add the highest-scoring minorities who did not make the top 2,500.
- Hire candidates who represent a racial breakdown of the test takers. Sixty percent would be white; 17 percent black; 18 percent Hispanic; 2 percent Asian and 1 percent others.
- Hire candidates based on their scores on the last test, even though minorities would be under-represented, on condition that the next two classes enroll a higher percentage of black and Hispanic candidates.
A spokesman for the Corporation Counsel said the city is reviewing its options.
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