By Jen McCaffery
The Virginian-Pilot
PORTSMOUTH, Va. — The city has settled a racial discrimination lawsuit contending that a test used to hire entry-level firefighters rejected a disproportionate number of African American candidates.
The agreement is the latest result of a series of investigations the U.S. Department of Justice has conducted into discriminatory hiring around South Hampton Roads. A similar inquiry into the Portsmouth Police Department has been closed without action, a Justice Department spokesman said.
As part of the fire department settlement announced Wednesday, Portsmouth will no longer administer the written entrance exam the Justice Department found discriminatory.
Since 2004, the test has been administered four times. White applicants passed at a rate of 85.9 percent, while the rate for African American applicants was 42.4 percent, according to documents filed Wednesday in federal court in Norfolk.
Had African Americans passed the exam at the same rate as whites, 86 more African American applicants would have remained under consideration for entry-level firefighting positions.
The city also agreed to put $145,000 into a settlement fund to award back pay to African Americans affected by the city’s use of the examination. Those applicants may also receive priority in future hiring.
Portsmouth also will hire as many as 10 eligible African American claimants as firefighters.
“We are grateful that the City is working with the Department to ensure every applicant has an equal opportunity to serve as a firefighter,” Dana J. Boente, acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a news release.
Portsmouth City Attorney Tim Oksman wrote in an e-mail that the city was “very pleased” to reach the agreement with the Justice Department .
“It will increase diversity within our workforce — a goal we all support — and it will do so in ways that do not diminish professionalism, and at a very acceptable cost,” Oksman wrote.
Fire department Interim Chief Beck Barfield did not return a call seeking comment Wednesday, and a representative of the Portsmouth firefighters union did not respond to a message.
The settlement is subject to approval by the federal court.
Portsmouth is the third local city to become the subject of a civil-rights inquiry.
In 2006, the Justice Department determined that Chesapeake and Virginia Beach discriminated against black and Hispanic applicants on the math portion of their entrance exams. Both cities also reached settlements with the Justice Department.
In May 2007, the Justice Department informed Portsmouth of the agency’s discrimination investigation into the police and fire departments.
According to court documents, as of Oct. 7, 2008, Portsmouth employed about 226 firefighters. Just over 12 percent are African American. Meanwhile, the city’s civilian labor force is more than 45 percent African American.
The city used a written exam called the National Firefighter Selection Test as part of the screening process, according to the complaint.
While African Americans made up about 29 percent of the applicant pool, they represented only 17.9 percent of the applicants who passed the test, according to the complaint.