The Chicago Tribune reports:
An intelligence analyst for the FBI in Chicago who allegedly missed becoming a special agent by a single pushup has filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit alleging that the FBI's fitness test is flawed and biased against men.
Jay Bauer, a Northwestern University doctoral graduate, joined the FBI in 2009 after leaving the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee as an assistant professor in its communication sciences department, according to the lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Chicago.
Bauer passed a fitness test before entering new-agent training at Quantico, Va., where he scored at or near the top of his class in everything from firearms training to academics, according to his lawsuit. He was also selected by his fellow trainees to be their class leader, the lawsuit said.
There's more:
His attorneys argued that a female trainee who scored near the bottom of the class in firearms proficiency was given another attempt at the fitness test, but Bauer wasn't.
They also argued that the FBI's fitness standards — which before 2003 required men to do 25 pushups — are comparatively harder for males. Female trainees must complete at least 14 untimed pushups, an amount equal to 27 to 29 for men, the lawsuit says, citing a database maintained by a fitness consultant the FBI worked with in drafting the guidelines.
Equal protection under the law?
