Take Boston, which in 2000 sought to hire 25 new firefighters. The good news is that 29 candidates scored 100 percent or better on the test. (Extra points given for education and experience make it possible to score above 100 percent.) The bad news is that none of these 29 top scorers made it into the top 200 on the hiring list.
In fact, none of the 100-percenters–including the smart but unfortunate fellow who landed at No. 1,837 on the hiring list–had any chance of getting a job. According to the “2n + 1” rule, when hiring for 25 positions, Boston is allowed to consider only the top 51 interested candidates on the Civil Service hiring list. But the top of the most recent hiring list was loaded with candidates who earned mediocre scores. The list of 51 candidates eligible for hiring included only six of the top 200 scorers; 11 of the 51 had been outscored by 2,000 or more fellow applicants. The individual in the No. 22 spot on the hiring list had a score of 72, just two points above passing–and below 3,383 of the 3,429 candidates who passed the test. So much for the Merit Principle.
Preferential treatment
If test scores don’t determine rank on the hiring list, what does? The answer is “preferences.” Certain “absolute preferences,” determined by law and court order, allow some applicants with at least a passing grade of 70 to move ahead of everyone else. In fact, there are so many folks being ushered to the front of the line it actually requires an order of preferences to sort them all out. Here is a typical list of absolute preferences used to create a Civil Service hiring list in a Massachusetts city or town:
- minority applicants (in consent decree communities only)
- resident children of police officers or firefighters killed in the line of duty
- non-resident children of police officers or firefighters killed in the line of duty
- resident disabled veterans
- resident children of police officers or firefighters injured in the line of duty
- non-resident children of police officers or firefighters injured in the line of duty
- resident veterans
- resident widows or widowed mothers of veterans killed in the line of duty or dead from service-connected disabilities incurred in wartime service
- resident non-veterans
- non-resident disabled veterans
- non-resident veterans
- non-resident widows or widowed mothers of veterans killed in the line of duty or dead from service- connected disabilities incurred in wartime service
- non-resident non-veterans
Preferential treatment for minorities has excited the most public controversy, with white candidates for police or firefighter jobs complaining (or filing suit) when they lose out to lower-scoring minority applicants. But when it comes to undermining merit, racial preference would have limited impact were it not for the other forms of preference that apply at the same time.
Minority preferences are in force only in those communities where courts have issued a consent decree. Fifteen communities, representing 25 percent of the state’s population, are under such consent decrees for hiring police officers. Cambridge, for example, requires the first and each subsequent fourth candidate on the hiring list to be a designated minority candidate. In Boston, minority applicants are placed in the first position, third position, fifth position, etc., under a similar court consent decree.
These communities generally produce lots of high-scoring minority candidates. But these are not the ones who get the spots reserved for minorities. Because of other absolute preferences granted by statute, lower-scoring minority candidates are often the beneficiaries of these set-asides. For example, in 2003 there were 296 candidates who passed the Civil Service test and wanted to become Springfield police officers. Here are the top three candidates on the Civil Service hiring list and their test results:
Hiring List Rank ExamScore Test Score Rank
1 87% 172
2 74% 284
3 82% 241
Once again, the top candidates came from the middle of the barrel, if not the bottom. The first and third candidates were, by consent decree, minority candidates. But many minority candidates with higher scores were pushed lower on the list to make room for these two, who were veterans. Candidate No. 2, a non-minority, was a disabled veteran who nabbed the top spot on the hiring list not reserved for a minority candidate, despite a very low passing score.