Minorities Who Claimed Racial Bias After Failing Teacher Exam Get $1.8 Billion in Largest-Ever NYC Settlement
Failure never paid so well.
New York City is sending big checks to black and Hispanic residents who filed a discrimination lawsuit in 1996 after failing the New York State teachers’ exam.
The total bill will be more than $1.8 billion, making this the largest legal settlement in city history, the New York Post reported Saturday.
About 5,200 people will be part of the settlement, according to the report. As of Friday, at least 225 people had been notified they will collect more than $1 million each after failing the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test used between 1994 and 2014.
Herman Grim of Queens will collect more than $2 million, according to the Post.
Black, Hispanic NYers who failed teacher’s test strike $1.8B in NYC settlement https://t.co/7g8Ji1oNyz pic.twitter.com/I3NtoKUUgF
— New York Post (@nypost) July 15, 2023
The agreement was reached in 2021 by the administration of then-Mayor Bill DeBlasio, who at the time was in his final weeks in office.
The payouts reflect what the plaintiffs would have earned if they had been hired and remained with the school system.
Although some people will be getting only a few hundred dollars, the Post reported the total payout will likely increase because the city might still be paying for retirement benefits for people who never worked, and also paying for health insurance.
Many were irked at the deal.
“It’s a struggle to explain how New York City could spend $38,000 a year per kid with such a poor return, but decisions like this really help people understand where all that money’s going,” said Ken Girardin, a fellow and labor specialist at the Empire Center for Public Policy.
Arthur Goldstein, who recently retired after teaching at Francis Lewis High School in Queens, said the test was not a good bellwether of how applicants would perform as teachers, according to the Post. He said the issue should have been resolved years ago.
“All this money for nothing — nothing,” Goldstein said.
“I’ve been teaching in … overcrowded classrooms in miserable conditions when we could’ve had more teachers working. Instead, we just have the city paying [money] for no reason at all. It’s ridiculous,” he said.
The basis of the ruling was that the exam violated civil rights laws. White candidates passed it at a far higher rate than black and Hispanic test-takers.
According to the lawsuit, more than 90 percent of white candidates passed the exam while the passing rate for black test-takers was 53 percent and the passage rate for Hispanics was 50 percent.
The city’s legal team said it had to give in.
“Over decades, we challenged court rulings holding the city liable for a teacher certification test created and mandated by the state,” said Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department. “Unfortunately, the city did not prevail against these mistaken court decisions that unfairly burden city taxpayers with costly judgments.”
As reported by the Gothamist, the state, which developed the test, was let out of the lawsuit and any liability in 2006.
The Post noted that in addition to the big payday for those who failed the test, the city has paid out $8 million to the special master deciding who gets what as part of the settlement.
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