City to hire 6 rejected white firefighters
Hiring follows challenge to affirmative action plan

By Andrea Estes, Globe Staff, 1/3/2004

The Boston Fire Department has agreed to hire six men who were passed over in favor of minority group members with lower test scores, marking the first time the city has voluntarily agreed to hire rejected white applicants since a federal appeals court declared its affirmative action plan unconstitutional last March.

The six white men will join four others, who challenged the department's 29-year-old affirmative action plan and won a ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. All of the men had been turned down in favor of minority applicants who scored lower on a statewide civil service exam.

"This was a recognition by the city that the time has come to do away with the minority hiring preferences and judge everyone on an equal footing regardless of their race," said Mark J. Ventola, the lawyer for the six men who had filed suit in August. "It's a trend I'm hoping will continue."

City officials, though, insisted that their decision last week to hire the men is not a sign that Boston will hire dozens of other white men who also were rejected for firefighting jobs despite high test scores.

A Globe analysis conducted last spring found that some 70 white applicants were turned down, even though they scored better than minorities who were chosen.

"This settlement is merely a consequence of the original [US Appeals Court] decision," Seth Gitell, spokesman for Mayor Thomas M. Menino, said yesterday. "It applies only to the six plaintiffs in this particular case."

According to Ventola, the city will put on a new firefighter class in March that will be made up at least in part by white men previously rejected for the job.