The Biden-Harris administration is accusing another jurisdiction of discriminating against women and African Americans by creating law enforcement examinations that are too hard for them.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Friday announced a lawsuit against South Bend, Indiana. In their court filing, the DOJ accused the South Bend Police Department of creating a physical fitness test that discriminates against female candidates and a written test that discriminates against African-American candidates, allegedly because both groups were passing at considerably lower rates than their male and white counterparts, respectively.
“Equal employment opportunity is critical to ensuring that law enforcement agencies do not unfairly exclude otherwise eligible job applicants based on discriminatory practices,” assistant attorney general Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. “Discriminatory barriers that deny qualified Black and female applicants the opportunity to be police officers violate civil rights and undermine public safety efforts.”
“The Justice Department is committed to equal access to employment opportunities in the policing sector so that all qualified applicants have a fair chance to protect and serve their communities,” Clarke continued.
Since at least 2016, the South Bend Police Department (SBPD) has used a physical fitness test to screen candidates that consists of six activities, including a vertical jump, sit-ups, 300-meter run, push-ups, 1.5-mile run, and a pistol trigger pull, according to the lawsuit. From 2016 through August 2019, roughly 87.6% of male applicants passed the physical test while roughly 45.5% of female applicants passed.
The DOJ noted in their lawsuit that the SBPD lowered their physical fitness requirements around August 2019, but women continued to fail at a considerably lower rate than their male counterparts.
The SBPD’s written test consists of 120-130 multiple choice questions broken down into a total of seven sections, with applicants required to obtain a minimum score of at least 80% — a minimum that was lowered in 2017 from their previous threshold of 82%, according to the lawsuit. Since 2016, however, only about 62.8% of African-American applicants have passed the written exam while approximately 84.1% of white applicants have passed.
The DOJ alleges that components of both the physical and written are unrelated to the job activities of the SBPD.
“The Justice Department is seeking a court order to ensure that South Bend uses only lawful tests in its entry-level police officer hiring process,” according to a statement from the DOJ. “The department also seeks relief for Black and female applicants disqualified by the challenged tests, including back pay and, for those who can successfully complete the new lawful selection process, job offers with retroactive seniority.”
South Bend is the hometown of Pete Buttigieg, who served as mayor of the city before launching a failed bid for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination and then becoming the secretary of the Transportation Department. Racial tensions previously plagued the city’s police department during Buttigieg’s tenure as mayor.
The announcement of the lawsuit against South Bend follows the DOJ’s recent settlement agreement with the Maryland State Police Department, in which federal prosecutors also accused Maryland authorities of making physical fitness tests too tough for women and written tests too tough for African Americans.
In a statement provided to the Daily Caller News Foundation, the SBPD vigorously pushed back against the accusations.
“I am beyond disappointed that the DOJ has not been forthcoming with how these claims were determined in the first place,” South Bend Police Chief Scott Ruszkowski stated. “Our hiring process, which includes females and African American applicants, has been consistent over the last ten years and led to an increasingly diverse department, especially over the past several years.”
“We have even asked the outside testing company to modify the written test to open the process to more applicants,” Ruszowksi continued. “All requirements are listed online and meet State mandates, and more importantly, meet what our community expects in a professional police officer.”
The city’s public statement also noted that it did not learn of the lawsuit, which was filed in the Northern District of Indiana, until the DOJ’s press release on Friday.
Featured Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America
