The FDNY is NOT New York City’s "Most Racially Out-of-Balance” Agency!...

A federal judge (Nicholas Garaufis) recently ruled that multiple choice written exams “discriminate against black applicants” and charged the City of New York with “deliberate discrimination” for continuing to use such time-tested exams. That charge of “deliberate discrimination” sprang from the fact that “other remedies” (like replacing written exams with oral interviews) were suggested to the city after racial quotas (“1 in 3”) were used on the 1971 entrance exam.
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As insulting and racially defamatory as the view that "blacks are somehow handicapped just by being black" is, there's still MORE!
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How one set of such "ethnic disparities" is wrong and legally “actionable,” while others are never even mentioned, thus remaining immune from such “remedies” is an interesting dilemma, in and of itself.
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The primary reason for that seems to be political.
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According to the attorney for the New Haven 20 (Karen Torre) the feds picked Fire Departments to challenge because "they believed firefighters wouldn't fight back,” given their track record of 'sucking it up', soldiering on and just dealing with things as they come.
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The main reason given for such law suits and the remedies they result in is that, “Our institutions should look more like the communities that they serve.” Certainly the primary reason behind this current lawsuit against the FDNY, as in all the previous ones has been over the vaunted “racial and gender disparities in its makeup.” The charge has long been that, “the FDNY should look a lot more like New York City."
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What's really odd about this is that the FDNY is far from the most "racially out of balance" Department in the City of New York! According to current demographics (SEE: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/New_York_City), whites make up appx. 45% of the city’s population and account for 77% of the FDNY’s make-up - that’s a 1.67/1 ratio, or less than a 1 2/3X their numbers within New York City's general population. Even if one takes that 77% figure and throws out the “far more diverse” office staff and the EMS Units, and takes into account only the in-field uniformed workforce, said to be appx. 90% white that’s still a 2 to 1 ratio of whites relative to their numbers in NYC’s population!
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By comparison, while blacks comprise appx. 27% of NYC’s population, they comprise 65% of the Dept of Corrections personnel, a 2.4/1 ratio, or nearly 2½X the black personnel relative to their numbers within the city's general population...and blacks account for a staggering 78% of the Department of Juvenile Justice, which amounts to a 2.92/1 ratio, or a nearly 3 to 1 representation of blacks relative to their numbers within the city!
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So, why aren’t those, even greater racial/ethnic anomalies at least as large a concern as the FDNY’s much smaller racial disparity?
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Is it simply because far more College educated whites take the exams for Emergency Services jobs, virtually assuring a disparate outcome on those exams? That’s certainly one possibility.
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If so, then why aren’t the Dept of Justice’s and Nicholas Garaufis’ agendas not being viewed through a similar racial prism?
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To do the math yourself, you’ll need two sets of statistics; (1) The racial makeup of New York city is 44.66% White, 26.59% Black or African American, 0.52% Native American, 9.83% Asian, 0.07% Pacific Islander, 13.42% from other races, and 4.92% from two or more races. 26.98% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race. SEE: http://www.wordiq.com/definition/New_York_City and (2) the Demographics of City Agencies: http://www.citylimits.org/multimedia/257/new-york-city-s-agencies-by-race-ethnic-breakdown.
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There are TWO agencies in New York City that have over 1.5X the number of white employees than there are in New York City's general population. They are the FDNY and the Landmark's Commission, which, it turns out, actually has FEWER blacks and Hispanics in its employ than the FDNY does! There is only ONE other New York City agency in which whites comprise 60% of its workforce and that is the Office of Emergency management (OEM), which has a workforce that is exactly 60% white - a 1.3/1 ratio relative to the number of whites in new York City's population.
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Interestingly enough, despite blacks being only about 27% (26.59%) of New York City's population, or about 3/5ths or 60% of the number of whites in the city of New York, there are at least 7 agencies in which blacks comprise 60% or more of the workforce! In fact, black New Yorkers are the most OVER-REPRESENTED ethnic group in New York City's workforce.
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It turns out that New York City’s Civil Service is rife with far more startling ethnic anomalies than exist within the FDNY. There is even ONE New York City agency that records 0% Hispanics - the Office of Actuary, in a city that is 27% Hispanic! Moreover, there are at least TWELVE New York City agencies in which Asians are 1/2 or LESS than their numbers in New York City's population, including TWO agencies (The Civil Service Commission and, ironically enough, The Equal Employment Practices Commission) each with 0% Asian employees and ONE agency with just 1% Asian employees in a city in which Asians comprise appx 10% of the population!
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However, there are no less than 11 New York City agencies in which blacks are more than 1.5X their numbers in New York City's population!
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* The Department of Aging is 42% black. (appx 1.6X their numbers in NYC's population)
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* The Department of Youth and Community Services is 43% black. (1.6X their numbers in NYC's population)
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* The Department of Housing Preservation and Development is 45% black. (over 1.7X their numbers in NYC's population)
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* NYC Parks Department is 49% black. (over 1.8X their numbers in NYC's population)
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There are at least 7 New York City agencies in which there are more than double the number of black employees than their numbers in NYC's population.
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* The Human Resources Administration is 61% black. (2.2X their numbers in NYC's population)
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* The Equal Employment Practices Commission is 63% black (2.3X their numbers in NYC's population - Now there's an irony...AGAIN!)
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* The Department of Homeless Services is 64% black (2.3X their numbers in NYC's population)
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* The Department of Probation is 65% black (almost 2.5X their numbers in NYC's population)
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* The Department of Corrections is 65% black (also nearly 2.5X their numbers in NYC's population)
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* The Administration for Children's Services is 67% black (over 2.5X their numbers in NYC's population)
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* and the REAL "singular embarrassment", as far as "looking like the population of New York City" goes to the Department of Juvenile Justice at 78% black (nearly 3X their numbers in NYC's population).
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So, if written and physical standards aren't appropriate barometers for Municipal employment (and if they aren't, what good are such "services"?) and the primary goal in such hiring is to have the various city agencies "look like New York City", then why are there still agencies with 0% of some very visible ethnic groups and why are there so many more New York City agencies that are far MORE "racially unbalanced" than the FDNY?!
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If "looking like New York City" is key here, than it appears that there are dozens of New York City agencies that SHOULD HAVE been spending millions on recruitment decades ago, just as the FDNY has!
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Even just a modicum of consistency would be very much appreciated here.