The Maryland State Police has agreed to pay $2.75 million to dozens of aspiring troopers who were rejected due to a discriminatory hiring process, officials announced Wednesday.

The state police also will rework its testing regime for applicants, ditching a widely used generic test in favor of one that will be crafted specifically for troopers.

The payment and testing revisions are the result of a two-year investigation by the federal government into discriminatory hiring practices. The two sides agreed to a consent decree that was filed in federal court on Wednesday.

“Discrimination in any form has no place within the Maryland State Police and it will not be tolerated,” Col. Roland Butler, the state police superintendent, said Wednesday. He asked the state’s Board of Public Works, which has the final say on state spending, to agree to the settlement.

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During the course of its investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice found that the state police “used discriminatory hiring practices that wrongly disqualified Black and female state trooper candidates,” said Sarah A. Marquardt, an assistant U.S. attorney.

Those disqualified candidates, 48 in total, will be paid a combined $2.75 million under the terms of the settlement.

“Discrimination in any form has no place within the Maryland State Police and it will not be tolerated,” said Col. Roland Butler, who was sworn in as superintendent of the Maryland State Police in 2023. (Ulysses Muñoz/The Baltimore Banner)

And the state police will need to craft new tests for prospective troopers, under the supervision of the federal government. Federal investigators found problems with both the main aptitude test, known as the Police Officer Selection Test, and the physical fitness test, known as the Functional Fitness Assessment Test.

The POST test, which includes math, reading, grammar and writing skills, disproportionately excluded Black applicants, according to a court filing made by the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday. Since 2017, white applicants have had a 91% pass rate, while Black applicants have had a 71% pass rate.

The fitness test, which includes pushups, situps, a flexibility test and a 1.5-mile run, disproportionately excluded female applicants, the federal government wrote in a court filing on Wednesday. Men passed the fitness test 81% of the time, compared to 51% of women.

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The use of those tests, therefore, resulted in an illegal pattern of employment discrimination, according to the federal government. And the tests didn’t even measure the skills needed to be a trooper, the Department of Justice alleges.

“The United States alleges that the physical fitness test and written test have not been shown to be job related for the MDSP’s entry-level Trooper position and consistent with business necessity,” the consent decree states.

Marquardt noted that the state police and state government cooperated with the investigation.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, praised that cooperation. He also made a point to note the investigation started in 2022 “under the previous administration,” which was led by Republican Gov. Larry Hogan.

“This does not happen unless you have leadership, both at DOJ, but also leaders in state police who say that it’s important that we right these wrongs,” Moore said.

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Butler said the state police did not purposely work to exclude applicants based on race or gender.

“While the DOJ’s investigation found that the discrimination practices were unintentional, the fact remains that 48 men and women were deprived of the opportunity to serve and protect the community — and they were done so unjustly and denied this opportunity unintentionally,” Butler said.

While the new tests are being developed, the state police will still use the old tests with some modifications for its next two recruit classes, Butler told the Board of Public Works. The fitness test will no longer have time cutoffs, with the times instead being used as a benchmark to determine where candidates may need to do more work.

The $2.75 million payment will be made to four dozen applicants who were rejected by the state police. The federal government and the state’s lawyers negotiated that amount, taking into account factors including whether the applicants ultimately found other jobs in law enforcement.

The settlement represents “a step forward,” but isn’t enough to solve all of the discrimination problems within the Maryland State Police, said Sgt. Anthony Alexander, president of the Coalition of Black Maryland State Troopers. He lamented that it took an investigation by the federal government to address hiring problems, when troopers have been raising concerns for years.

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“Does it fix it? No it doesn’t,” Alexander said in an interview. “But we’re taking steps forward. It’s kind of sad we have to go outside. ... No one wants to listen to what’s really going on. It seems that everyone wants to mask the situation.”

The Maryland State Police have faced a number of controversies in recent years, in addition to the investigation into hiring practices.

The agency has been sued by troopers who have alleged discrimination in promotion and disciplinary decisions, disadvantaging Black troopers.

And The Baltimore Banner reported last year that troopers in some barracks were subjected to a quota-like system for issuing tickets and making arrests — a practice that’s long been banned in Maryland. Butler, who has spent decades in the state police, professed no knowledge of the systems and said they were “blatantly wrong.”

The agency’s problems were spotlighted when Moore tapped Butler to lead the state police as superintendent last year. Though some senators who were tasked with confirming Butler’s appointment expressed concerns, he was ultimately approved on a 43-4 vote.

Butler is the first Black leader of the state police, which has a majority-white force of troopers.