Tuesday, the Durham Fire Department announced it entered into a settlement agreement with the United States Department of Justice over the use of a written test in its hiring practices since 2015.
DOJ investigators allege the written test, created by Fire & Police Selection, Inc. (FPSI), was considered to be disproportionately discriminatory against African Americans due to pass/fail rates. According to data, African-American candidates failed the test at a 37% rate compared to just 11% of white candidates.
“Had we known this 9 years ago when we started this, we wouldn’t have used this test in the first place,” said Durham FD chief Robert Zoldos. “I want people to understand that we did our due diligence in finding this testing company.”
FPSI’s website describes itself as a consulting firm, “With nearly 30 years of experience in the public safety industry, specializing in the development and validation of pre-employment and promotional tests that are used by human resources, fire, police, and sheriff’s departments across the United States and Canada. Our assessments have been used to successfully screen hundreds of thousands of candidates.”