Chief Leader – November 21, 2017
by BOB HENNELLY
For the first time in the history of the FDNY, people of color were the majority of those who took the Firefighter exam, according to the final tally released by the department last week. There was also a 115-percent spike in the number of women who took the test in September and October.
A record 46,305 people took the exam, with 26,018 of them being people of color. The number of female test-takers jumped from 1,948 for the 2012 exam to 4,181.
Credits Recruiting Drive
“Our unprecedented recruitment campaign has succeeded in drawing interest in a firefighting career from more young men and women than ever before,” said Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro. “And our goals to expand and further diversify the applicant pool by attracting more women and people of color have also achieved record-breaking success.”
By racial category, Asians saw the biggest percentage jump: 1,315 took the 2012 exam and 2,032—a 55 percent increase—did so this year. That was followed by African-American applicants, whose numbers rose by 39 percent from 8,192 to 11,409.
This year 240 Native Americans took the test, compared to 178 in 2012. Hispanics posted a 29-percent increase, going from 9,580 to 12,337. Only white test-takers declined, with 20,283 participating, an 11-percent drop from 22,896 five years earlier.
Rooted in Test Settlement
The 2017 recruiting drive was part of the FDNY’s follow-up on a commitment it made to diversify its ranks, as part of the 2014 de Blasio Administration’s $98-million settlement with the Vulcan Society, the African-American fraternal organization. Prior to 2012, there were just 600 African-American firefighters, roughly 7 percent of the total service and well below the percentage of blacks living in the city.
It was the Vulcan Society’s successful discrimination case several years earlier that prompted the U.S. Department of Justice, under President George W. Bush, to sue the city in 2007 over the 1999 and 2002 Firefighter exams, alleging that they discriminated against blacks and Latinos and were not sufficiently job-related.
Since the settlement, there has been an emphasis on increasing diversity in the Fire Department. The latest class of graduates from the Fire Academy Oct. 18 was one of the most racially diverse in the history of the department, with more than half of the incoming Probationary Firefighters being people of color.
Not Enough Follow-Through
Firefighter Regina Wilson, president of the Vulcan Society, said that even with the uptick in African-American test-takers, she remained “disappointed” about the thousands of African-Americans that said they were interested in taking the test but failed to follow through. “It is that attrition rate that’s our concern, and it’s not just for people of color but for women as well,” Ms. Wilson said in a phone interview. “We need to zero in and brainstorm on why people are not following through.”
She said that some recent highly-publicized instances of race-based hazing in firehouses undercut the recruitment effort. “You’ve got these cases where people should have been fired and instead they are losing days of vacation or having their probationary period extended. It just sends cross-signals,” she said. “This white-male-culture thing is still an issue even as we are seeing the highest number of people of color and women coming on the job. The real work now is down at the firehouse level. It can’t be done just with special orders from headquarters.”
Firefighter Sarinya Srisakul, president of the United Women Firefighters, expressed similar concerns about the attrition rate, with close to half the women that expressed interest not ultimately taking the test.
Below National Average
According to the latest statistics from the National Fire Protection Association, 4.6 percent of the nation’s firefighters are women. The UWF said just .6 percent of FDNY Firefighters are female.
The $10-million recruitment campaign included staffing more than 10,200 events throughout the city during the 18 months prior to administration of the exam; more than 1.7 million email communications to applicants; 150,000 phone calls to interested recruits; 14,771 applicants attended an FDNY in-person tutorial session; and 8,600 people downloaded online tutorial material to help them prepare for the exam.
The computer-based test was administered to applicants at multiple testing locations throughout the city.
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