Court Opinion

ID: 9750628
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 15:13:12.62452+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:26:15.009031
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Me. Justice Roberts :
I agree with the majority that the employment of different tests for applicants seeking the position of police sergeant and policewoman sergeant of itself does not violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. However, in my view the determinative issue, one which the majority does not discuss, is whether the use of oral examinations, which constitute 40% of the women applicants’ grade, so violates the merit principles of the civil service system that its utilization is an abuse of discretion on the part of the personnel director.
Section 7-300 of the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter provides: “The purpose of the civil service provisions of this charter is to establish for the City a system of personnel administration based on merit principles and scientific methods governing the appointment, promotion, demotion, transfer, lay-off, removal and discipline of its employees, and other incidents of City employment.”
Under current regulations the examination for policewoman sergeant consists of three parts weighted as *607follows: 50% is written, 10% is based upon seniority considerations, and 40% upon the oral examination.1 By no stretch of the imagination can this examination be characterized as scientific. I trust that the vast majority of the examiners, if not all, are conscientious individuals who will attempt to administer the oral portion of the test in an objective manner. But it must be remembered that the examiners are also human and an oral examination necessarily involves highly personal and subjective standards of scoring even under optimal conditions.
Even if one were to concede the majority’s conclusion that the position of police sergeant and policewoman sergeant are not substantially identical, there is no suggestion that the qualifications necessary to be a policewoman sergeant cannot be adequately tested by written examination. If appellees had demonstrated that oral examinations were essential to the proper selection of policewoman sergeants, conceivably we would have a different case.2 But the force of appellees’ argument is simply that it is impractical to give men oral examinations. Since the oral examinations challenged by appellant could easily subvert the principle of merit promotion, I believe that, in the absence of a demonstration of necessity, the 40% emphasis placed by the personnel director upon the oral examination of candidates for the position of policewoman sergeant is an abuse of discretion.
I dissent.

 ln contrast, the examination for male police sergeant consists of a written examination (90%) and a 10% seniority rating.

 At oral argument the City admitted that it knew of no other civil service examination which placed so great a stress on oral examination.