Austin paying firm to design firefighter entrance exam so non-white men can score better

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Austin is paying a firm $1.2 million to design its firefighter entrance exam so that black, Hispanics and women score better.

The contract orders the firm to use test sections that "reduce or eliminate disparate impact" on those three groups.

If those groups still score lower, the firm says it will recommend branding and "compensatory adjustments," among other things.

Federal law bans adjusting hiring test scores by race or sex. In 2009 the Supreme Court ruled that New Haven broke civil rights law when it threw out a firefighter exam because too few black candidates passed.

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Austin's firefighter entrance exam is designed around racial outcomes.

The firm that builds the test sold itself to the city by saying it "increased Blacks in the passing list by 208%" in Houston.

In its pitch it also points to Kansas City, where it says "black representation in the department matches the relevant labor market" and women make up "3 times the national representation of women in the fire service."

In Austin, the written test is 20% of an applicant's score. The other 80% is an oral interview, graded by outside evaluators who take at least four hours of "bias" training first.

In the last hiring cycle, 1,398 people applied and 667 took the test. The firm ranked them by combined score, and a selected 150-200 candidates went on to physical, medical and background checks.

Before the rankings go to the city, the firm (Morris & McDaniel) breaks every score down by race and sex and runs statistical tests on each group.

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