Opinion ID: 532991
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prior Entry-Level Litigation

Text: 7 Until 1955, the SFFD had hired no Black firefighters. Women had been barred from applying until 1976, and the first woman firefighter was not hired until August 1987. The NAACP and several community groups filed a federal suit in 1970 challenging entry-level hiring practices on the sole ground of racial discrimination under 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981 and 1983. Western Addition Community Org. [WACO] v. Alioto, 330 F.Supp. 536 (N.D.Cal.1971) (WACO I ). The district court found the entry-level exam had a disparate impact on minorities and the City had failed to show the exam's components were job-related. Id. at 539-40. 8 The City unsuccessfully revised its entry-level firefighter exam. The district court invalidated the new test. It ruled that no job analysis had been conducted and therefore the court could not determine whether the exam was reasonably related to job requirements. Western Addition Community Org. [WACO] v. Alioto, 340 F.Supp. 1351, 1356 (N.D.Cal.1972) (WACO II ). A second revision was rejected when the City failed to empirically validate the new test. Western Addition Community Org. [WACO] v. Alioto, 360 F.Supp. 733, 739 (N.D.Cal.1973) (WACO III ). 9 The district court granted affirmative relief in 1973 after the City failed to either validate the entry-level test or formulate a new one. Western Addition Community Org. [WACO] v. Alioto, 369 F.Supp. 77 (N.D.Cal.1973) (WACO IV ), appeal dismissed as moot, 514 F.2d 542 (9th Cir.) (per curiam), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 1014, 96 S.Ct. 446, 46 L.Ed.2d 385 (1975). The court ordered one-for-one White to minority hiring from the 1973 entry-level list, regardless of rank, until the list of qualified applicants--those who had answered at least fifty of the 100 written questions correctly and had passed the oral and athletic exams--was exhausted. Id. at 80-81. 10 The WACO litigation was settled in 1977 by a five-year consent decree which established guidelines for using exam components, included no affirmative relief and set a goal of 40% minority representation on the entry-level list. Western Addition Community Org. [WACO] v. Alioto, No. C-70-1335 WTS, slip op. at 9-10 (N.D.Cal. May 18, 1977) (WACO V ).