Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 29, 1993                   TAG: 9308290068
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION SAYS TESTS KEEP WOMEN OUT OF DEPARTMENTS

The president of a national organization of women firefighters says at least one reason for that is the agility tests that departments require are skewed against women.

Less than 1 percent of the nation's paid firefighters are women, according to Brenda Berkman, president of the 10-year-old national organization, Women in Fire Suppression. That amounts to about 3,000 women firefighters.

A firefighter for the New York City Fire Department, Berkman fought a battle more than a decade ago against hiring requirements that she perceived as biased against women. She won, in court.

Dozens of cases across the country have raised the issue of whether agility tests are biased against women and minorities.

"If they were going to use it, they had to show that it was nondiscriminatory," said Gary Tokle, a National Fire Protection Association training and education specialist. "They don't have to show that, until the point and time that someone challenges it."

Two years ago, the association stopped publishing a set of guidelines for agility tests because fire departments weren't consistently able to prove they were applicable to the job on local levels, Tokle said.

The association is working on a new set of guidelines.

Berkman believes that:

Many of the entry-level exams include exercises that can be acquired through training and don't adequately represent native abilities of applicants.

The tests' requirements are developed by incumbent male firefighters, whose perceptions of needed skills for firefighting emphasize brute force, tools and machinery, and other traditionally manly strengths instead of social skills, aerobic ability and stamina, finesse and flexibility.

The tests set unnaturally high barriers that are not maintained once firefighters land the jobs.

"Firefighting is a matter of training and teamwork," Berkman said. There is "definitely a physical element, but a lot of people could be trained."

Roanoke, Roanoke County and Salem fire departments do not require incumbent firefighters to pass the tests in order to keep their jobs, although they encourage firefighters to stay physically fit.

Roanoke's test was developed in the mid-'80s by Jim Beatty, an administrator in the city's personnel management office. To set the requirements, firefighters chosen at random performed the test.

The county's and Salem's tests were established from guidelines laid out by the National Fire Protection Association.

Local fire authorities insist that the tests don't require job training and aren't biased against women.

Still, if an inordinate number of men can pass the physical exams but few women can, "it means there's a problem," Berkman said. "One particular aspect of the hiring process . . . is effectively eliminating women for the job."