DESCRIPTIVE ABSTRACT:
The data set contains the oral, written and combined test scores for 2003 New Haven Fire Department
promotion exams. The Race and Position for each test taker are also given.
SOURCES:
The data was obtained from the district court's decision, the briefs and appendices to them.
Ricci v. DeStefeno, 554 F. Supp. 2d 142 (United States District Court for the district of Connecticut)
VARIABLE DESCRIPTIONS:
Columns
1 Race -- W = white, H=Hispanic, B=black
3-12 Position -- Captain or Lieutenant
14-18 Oral -- Oral exam score
20-21 Written -- Written exam score
23-28 Combine -- Weighted total score, with 60% written and 40% oral
Values are centered and delimited by blanks. There are no missing values.
STORY BEHIND THE DATA:
In November and December of 2003, the New Haven Fire Department administered oral and written exams
for promotion to Lieutenant and Captain. Under the contract between the City of New Haven and the
firefighter's union, the written exam received a weight of 60% and oral exam received a weight of 40%.
Applicants with a total score of 70% or above pass the exam and become eligible for promotion. A total
of 118 firefighters took the exam. Among them, 77 took the Lieutenant exam, and 41 took the Captain exam.
During the time of the exams, there were 8 Lieutenant and 7 Captain positions available. The City Charter of
New Haven specifies that when "g" promotions are made, the Department must select them from the top
"g+2" scorers. Consequently, top 10 Lieutenant scorers and top 9 Captain scorers are eligible for
potential promotion. The City of New Haven decided not to certify the exam and promoted no one,
because an insufficient number of minorities would receive a promotion to an existing position.
Ricci and other test-takers who would be considered for promotion had the city certified the exam
sued the city for reverse discrimination. The District Court decided that the plaintiffs did not
have a viable disparate impact claim. The appeals court confirmed the district court's ruling in
Feb, 2008. On June 29, 2009, the Supreme Court decided that the City's failure to certify the tests
was a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
PEDAGOGICAL NOTES:
There are three races in the data: white, Hispanic and black. The data can be used for one-way ANOVA on
equality of average test scores for three races; two-way ANOVA for
equlity of test scores for race and position; chi-square test on the equality
of pass rates for three races; Fisher-Freeman-Halton test on the equality of the potential promotion
rates.
Instructors can also combine blacks and Hispanics as minority. Then the following analysis can be made:
two-sample t-test on equality of average test scores for majority v. minority; chi-square test on the
equality of pass rates for majority v. minority; Fisher's exact test on equality of the potential
promotion rates for majority v.minority.
Data obtained from
https://github.com/algofairness/fairness-comparison