EthnicMajority

(NY Daily News) Veterans who dreamed of joining the FDNY vented frustration yesterday with a judge’s decision to cancel a class of firefighters because he said the test they took was biased.

“The people who are supposed to be getting helped [by this ruling] could be the one getting hurt,” said Nafis Sabir, a 33-year-old African-American man who spent eight years in the Marine Reserves.

“I feel pretty frustrated,” said Sabir, one of 50 military veterans among the 312 candidates set to enter the department. “I didn’t see where the racial bias [was] coming from.

“If I never got to become a firefighter, I would have a pretty bitter taste in my mouth,” added Sabir, who was deployed to Kuwait in 2003.

Military veterans got extra points on the 2007 FDNY test that Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis threw out on Wednesday, saying it was discriminatory.

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(Christian Science Monitor) Some 6,000 African-American applicants for jobs with the Chicago Fire Department can proceed with a discrimination lawsuit over the firefighter hiring test, the Supreme Court ruled Monday.

The US Supreme Court ruled on Monday that some 6,000 African-American job applicants are entitled to pursue a discrimination lawsuit claiming a Chicago Fire Department hiring test created a disparate impact against minority candidates.

The justices unanimously reversed a federal appeals court decision that had thrown out the group’s class-action lawsuit on grounds that they had filed their challenge after a 300-day deadline had passed.

Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia said lawsuits attacking ongoing employment practices that result in disparate impacts against minority groups are not tied to the same 300-day limitations period.

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