Lawsuit: FBI Fitness Test Discriminates Against Men
UPDATED 04/10/12 8:16 a.m.
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A male Chicago FBI employee is suing the agency, alleging gender discrimination.
As WBBM Newsradio's Mike Krauser reports, Jay Bauer, a Northwestern University doctoral graduate, joined the FBI in 2009 as an intelligence analyst.
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His lawsuit – and his lawyer tells the Chicago Tribune he is a reluctant plaintiff – contends the agency's fitness test is biased against men.
His suit, a copy of which was obtained by WBBM Newsradio, says he was required to do 30 push-ups. He managed 29, but says a woman taking the test got a second chance.
Bauer says he scored at or near the top of his class at everything from firearms training to academics, and filled other requirements for men – completing 38 sit-ups in one minute, sprinting 300 meters in 52.4 seconds, and running 1.5 miles in 12 minutes and 24 secondse.
But he says he had to resign from special agent training over that one missed push-up.
Bauer's attorneys claim that the FBI fitness standards are harder for men than women, since women only have to complete 14 untimed push-ups – the equivalent of 27 to 29 for men.
Bauer had sought to settle the case with an administrative law judge, but took the fight to federal court after concluding he wasn't getting a fair hearing, the Tribune reported.
