Complaint Puts Plans for New Police Test in Doubt

 

The Cedar Rapids Gazette: Fri., April 1, 1977

 

by Mike Deupree, City Hall Reporter

 

The city’s efforts to encourage and recruit minorities for jobs as police officers suffered a setback on Thursday, ironically because of two incidents that spurred the efforts in the first place.

 

The setback was the filing of a complaint against the police department with the office of civil rights compliance of the federal Law Enforcement Assistance administration (LEAA).

 

Acting Chief Gareth Clift revealed Thursday afternoon, during a meeting of he mayor’s committee on minority hiring practices, that the complaint challenges the validity of the civil service commission’s written test, claiming it isn’t job-related.

 

Stricter Requirements?

 

The complaint also alleges the city used stricter requirements for blacks than for whites regarding the need for a valid Iowa driver’s license and for information about educational backgrounds.

 

The irony is that questions about how those matters were handled by the civil service commission during its tests last fall were the basis for renewed criticism of the police hiring policies.

 

That led to the formation of the special committee, and Thursday it appeared a new test would be given immediately that would provide minority individuals a good chance to become eligible for police work.

 

But the complaint may delay all that, because the commission and police department are reluctant to give the test when its status is uncertain.

 

“We have another complaint right now and they’re challenging the test,” Clift told the other members of the committee.

 

“If you go ahead and give a test that’s being challenged, it’s going to be ruled invalid.”

 

The announcement of the complaint was a bombshell to the group, and it was the first time Safety Commissioner Ed Colton had heard of it. Clift said he only learned of it Thursday afternoon, when he received a letter form E. William Rine, acting director of the LEAA compliance division.

 

Must Provide Information

 

The police department is now required to provide a great deal of information and aid with the LEAA investigation of the complaint, a process that could take months. If the city is found in the wrong, Clift said, “they (the federal government) could pull out a lot of LEAA funds we’ve already received.”

 

The announcement brought an abrupt end to the committee’s meeting, which had produced some sharp divisions of opinion regarding Colton’s plans for an early testing procedure.

 

The committee agreed to meet next week and hear a report form member George Gable, chairman of the civil service commission, on what the commission plans to do about the test.

 

Gable went from the committee meeting directly to the civil service commission meeting, where a decision was made to further evaluate both the current test and one available from a Chicago firm.

 

The commission had already been strongly considering switching to the Chicago test because, among other reasons, it has been validated as to job-relatedness.

 

At any rate, hopes of Colton and some others to hold the test in early May seem doomed.

 

Now Test in July?

 

“I don’t think it’s at all possible,” Gable said Friday. “I think the earliest possible time… I would like to see one in July.”

 

There had been opposition to the early testing before, primarily from Clift, who had explained that the mayor’s committee had already agreed a longer, not a shorter, recruiting period was desirable. Clift also pointed to heavy demands on police personnel that would make conducting test and training schools quite difficult.

 

“We’re trying to pusht his through simply because we have 15 or 17 minorities ready to take the test, and I don’t think we can do that,” he said.

 

Clift and Gable also raised the point that the accelerated testing procedure, which goes against the recommendations of the special committee, could be challenged by the LEAA because it doesn’t provide enough time to recruit females or white males.

 

“I think every bit of publicity has been part of the recruitment,” Colton replied.

 

“I know the chief is concerned about this, and he’s certainly right, but I’m not going to handle this as ‘business as usual.’ That’s not the way it’s going to be.

 

“If I have to come down here and run the physical test myself, I’ll do it.”

 

It was at that point, though, that Clift revealed the existence of the complaint, which Colton admitted “changes the whole picture.”