A physical abilities test the city is using to hire African-American firefighters in settlement of a race discrimination lawsuit is discriminatory against women, a suit filed Friday in U.S. District Court charges.
Godfrey et al vs. City of Chicago was filed by 20 female plaintiffs on behalf of all female applicants who recently took the test and failed.
"The city hasn't been served yet with the lawsuit, so we cannot comment at this time," city Law Department spokesman Roderick Drew said.
The women already are part of two other class-action lawsuits.
They were members of Lewis et al vs. City of Chicago - encompassing about 6,000 African-American firefighter applicants who sued over a 1995 firefighter entrance exam that the federal courts agreed was racially discriminatory. That suit was finally settled last year.
The Godfrey plaintiffs are also members of Vasich vs. City of Chicago, a lawsuit filed last year on behalf of women who passed the written exam but failed the physical abilities test.
That suit, which seeks to replace the physical test, is pending.
"It's a test that doesn't really test for the abilities you need to become a firefighter and screens out women needlessly and unjustifiably," said attorney Marni Willenson, who represents some of the women in the Godfrey suit and is lead attorney on Vasich.
"We've been in settlement discussions for a year, yet the city made the decision again to use the test we were suing to throw out," she said.
As part of the settlement of the Lewis suit, the city agreed to hire 111 of the bypassed African-American applicants and to pay damages that could reach as high as $78 million to the remaining 5,900.
About 1,000 of those African-American applicants were invited to try out. The jobs were to go to the first 111 who passed the disputed physical test; drug and background checks, and medical exams.
So where the Vasich suit covers women in general who have taken and failed the physical test since 2007, the Godfrey suit now covers African-American women from the Lewis suit who failed the same test.
Both suits charge that the physical test, which includes arm and leg lifts; arm endurance tests; hose dragging, and stair climbing discriminates by screening out women at a higher rate than men.
In 2011, women still made up only 2 percent of the more than 5,000 firefighters/emergency medical technicians staff, the Godfrey lawsuit charges.
It seeks back pay and other relief "to secure future protection and to redress the past deprivation of rights."
Friday's lawsuit represents the third time the physical abilities test has been the subject of a discrimination lawsuit by women.
In 2008, five women who failed the paramedic physical ability test sued, and that first case is still pending in federal court.
