In the history of our country, one of the great achievements of the liberal-reform movement was the establishment of the civil service system in government employment. This system is now prevalent in federal, state and local government units. Civil service reform, however, has not been instituted in school systems, except for those of New York City and a few other large cities.
The civil service principal in New York City's schools, administered by an independent Board of Examiners (whose members are themselves selected through civil service procedures), has long been under attack. School superintendents, Board of Education members and politicians have frequently assailed the "rigidity" of the Board of Examiners-by which they seemed to mean, in many instances, unwillingness of the Board to bend the civil service rules to help someone's friend get a job. During the 1950's and 1960's, the Board of Examiners was frequently attacked for aggravating the teacher shortage by setting unnecessarily high examination standards for teacher. Most recently, it has been under fire because the civil service system it administers prevents local communities from arbitrarily employing such teacher and supervisors as they want. It has been blamed, too, for the fact that the percentage of minority group teachers and supervisors working in New York City is small.
On September 17, U.S. Circuit Justice Walter R. Mansfield issued an injunction restraining the Board of Examiners from conducting further examinations and barring the Board of Education from licensing or appointing school supervisors on the basis of the civil service examinations, The Court order was based on a suit, filed by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Judge Mansfield found that in most of the examinations given over the last seven years "white candidates passed at almost I 1⁄2 times the rate of the black and Puerto Rican candidates." While he rejected the charge that discrimination was inherent in the fact that the percentage of minority group supervisors is far below the percentage of minority group students in the school (his argument being that "supervisors are drawn from the pool of qualified teachers ... and not from present day students"), he ruled that the examinations did have the de facto effect of discriminating against black and Puerto Rican applicants.
The decision emphasizes that such de facto discrimination, by itself, is not illegal. "The Constitution does not require that minority group candidates be licensed in the same proportion as white candidates. The goal of the examination procedures should be to provide the best qualified supervisors, regardless of their race, and if the examinations appear reasonably constructive to measure knowledge, skills and abilities essential to a particular position, they should not be nullified because of a de facto discriminatory impact." The Court's decision was based, not on de facto discrimination alone, but on the argument the there was not sufficient proof that what the examination tested for was necessary for adequate performance on the job -- a conclusion with which the Board of Examiners strongly disagreed.
New Forms of Discrimination
While there will continue to be disagreement on whether these past examination are valid tests, it is important that the Mansfield decision not be misread. The decision does not prevent the continuation of a civil service system. The examination system is an absolute necessity, in a city where there are almost 4000 jobs paying from 20,000 to 30,000, if we are to avoid patronage and discrimination.
Future examination must accurately measure job ability. This is no easy task. It will require money and manpower for continuing research. It is the height of hypocrisy for the Chancellor and Board of Education to condemn the Examiners for failure to validate their test when this failure is due both to the negligence of the Board of Education in filling vacancies on the Board of Examiners and to cut in the Examiners' budget.
Chancellor Scribner himself has attacked the Board of Examiners, charging "discrimination." Now the courts have acted, but, in enjoining the Examiners, they have no means eliminated the likelihood of discrimination. It would be ironic indeed if the "discriminatory" tests of the Examiners were to be replaced by a system of discriminatory community hiring practices in which "blacks only" are hired in some of district and "whites only" in others; or a system in which jobs go to relatives, political allies, or the highest bidder.
Chancellor Scribner's commitment to the cause of non-discrimination will ultimately be tested by what new procedures are introduced. Over a period of time, valid examinations must be created to replace the invalid ones. In the interim, the Chancellor must adopt procedures which will prevent new forms of discrimination from replacing the old.