TRANSIT cops in Philadelphia can’t afford to take long snack breaks at the doughnut shop. They have to stay fit and trim, able to run eight or ten city blocks, sometimes going up and down flights of stairs carrying heavy gear. When they arrive at a scene to assist commuters, they must have enough energy to grapple with criminals or help people in trouble.
It’s a tough assignment, but the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) makes sure it hires people who are up to the task. Eleven years ago, it developed a test requiring applicants to run one-and-a-half miles in under 12 minutes while wearing 26 pounds of equipment. Since this testing started, a lot of applicants have failed to meet the standard, including 93 percent of women. Feminists howled about sexism and filed a lawsuit against SEPTA. They didn’t have much of a case, but that hardly mattered to the adventurous spirits who ran the civil rights division at the Department of Justice during the Clinton years; in 1997, they joined the suit.
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