Black and Hispanic aspiring teachers who failed a New York City licensing exam have reached a settlement in a decades-old discrimination lawsuit, receiving monetary compensation for their losses. The lawsuit, which was filed in 1996 on behalf of four teachers but later expanded to include 5,200 aspiring and ex-teachers, alleged that the city’s licensing exam was biased against minority applicants.
The licensing exam in question, the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, was used by the city to license teachers between 1994 and 2014. According to court records from Manhattan federal court, some 225 individuals who failed the exam have already been notified that they will receive substantial rewards, with each person potentially receiving up to $2.1 million. These payments are calculated based on how much the recipient would have earned if they had passed the test and either kept or obtained a teaching job. The rewards also include compensation for health insurance and pension checks from potential teaching jobs.
One of the recipients, Herman Grim, received nearly $2.1 million for repeatedly failing the exam in the early 1990s, despite claiming that he had hired private tutors and studied diligently. Grim was finally able to become a special education teacher for the city last year after passing the current version of the exam. When questioned by the New York Post, Grim was unable to provide specific examples of how the test was biased.
The plaintiffs argued that the exam questions were “culturally biased” in favor of white applicants and failed to accurately predict competent job performance. They contended that the exam did not measure general knowledge, teaching skills, or competency in content areas. The passing rates for minority test-takers were significantly lower compared to white applicants, with between 51 and 62% of black test-takers passing and only 47 to 55% of Latinos passing, while over 90% of white applicants passed.
Although the city initially claimed it should not be held liable for an exam that the state required it to use and won the case in a 2003 trial, a Manhattan federal judge in 2012 found the city liable for making hiring decisions based on the test results. The judge determined that the exam had a discriminatory impact on black and Latino teachers and did not correlate with performance in the classroom. As a result, a federally-appointed special master ordered the payments.
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio began the process of settling the lawsuit in 2018, allocating $1.8 billion to pay off the plaintiffs. This settlement represents the largest payout in the city’s history. De Blasio also settled another discrimination lawsuit in 2014, which involved black and Hispanic firefighters who were denied jobs by the Fire Department of New York, resulting in a $98 million payout.
The settlement reflects a significant step towards addressing historical discrimination in the education sector and providing compensation to individuals who were unfairly impacted by biased testing practices. It underscores the city’s commitment to rectifying past injustices and promoting equal opportunities for aspiring teachers from diverse backgrounds.
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