Now, another woman who lost her job since then because she was unable to complete the course in time is challenging the test, alleging it discriminates against women and doesn’t measure the skills and abilities required of a police officer.

The physical abilities test — a requirement for anybody seeking a job as an officer at a municipal police department — was the subject of a 2009 discrimination lawsuit that was settled last year.

A timed obstacle course that all prospective Massachusetts police officers must complete still includes a 5-foot climbing wall that critics say is a literal barrier to entry for women, 18 months after the state’s human resources agency agreed to revise the test.


The state Human Resources Division, which created and administers the test, agreed in a 2015 settlement that the test would be designed to comply with applicable law and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines for validity.

A spokesman for the state office of administration and finance, which oversees the state’s Human Resources Division, declined to discuss the test, citing the ongoing legal matter. The July 2015 settlement agreement indicated that an expert was in the process of revising the test at that time.

Lisa Brodeur-McGan, a Springfield lawyer who represented Juanita Mejias in the 2009 lawsuit that was settled last year, said she was surprised that the state had not prioritized revising the test after the settlement.

“I did not imagine that I would have to sue them to comply with it,” Brodeur-McGan said.

The state paid Mejias $70,000 and allowed her into the academy as part of the settlement. Mejias is now a police officer in Westfield, Brodeur-McGan said.

But the test and the 5-foot wall are the subject of a new complaint that is pending with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination — a potential precursor to another lawsuit. Employees seeking to sue public agencies for discrimination must file complaints with the commission before filing lawsuits in civil court. The woman’s name has not been released.


Candidates who take the physical abilities test have already been hired by a municipal police department or the University of Massachusetts or Environmental Police (State Police Department recruits follow a different process). The departments send recruits to the state’s Municipal Police Training Committee’s academy for 20 or more weeks of study, exercise, and drills. Recruits must pass a medical exam and the physical abilities test to be accepted into the academy.

Outlined in a training manual and a video on the state’s website, the physical abilities test includes a variety of timed events. Each must be completed within a designated time period, with short breaks in between events.

The 340-yard obstacle course — the first of four events in the test — includes four laps. On the first lap, candidates slide under a 19-inch-high bar. On the second, they climb and descend a small staircase. On the third, they climb through a window-shaped hole. On the final lap, the candidates must climb up and over a 5-foot-tall wall, zig-zag through cones, pull a weighted bag to the ground, and then operate a machine that simulates handcuffing a suspect. It must be completed in under 130.4 seconds.

Subsequent events include pulling the trigger of a handgun, pulling a heavy bag that simulates breaking up a fight, and dragging a dummy.


According to a preparation guide posted on the state’s website, the test “simulates the actions necessary to pursue and ‘takedown’ a suspect.”

Statistics cited in the Mejias lawsuit show the few men failed to complete the obstacle course in the allotted time, but many women did — even after the state added three footholds to the wall in 2006. The difference in the pass/fail rate for men and women was so great that the test failed to meet the EEOC’s threshold for fairness in most years, a standard known as the four-fifths rule.

Men — typically taller and often possessing more upper body strength — scaled the wall more quickly. But it was also not clear that the test bore any real relationship to the job of a municipal police officer, a judge wrote in summary judgment order that dismissed some of Mejias’s claims but allowed others to continue.

And unlike a State Police fitness test that is administered every two years, the municipal test is not administered to officers once they’re on the force.

“If it’s so important that you get over this damn wall, then why aren’t they making incumbent police officers do it?” Brodeur-McGan said.

Statistics for municipal police in Massachusetts were not available, and the Massachusetts Association of Women in Law Enforcement did not respond to questions about the test. According to the Department of Justice, women make up about 13 percent of police forces nationally — a number that has remained about the same in recent years.


The benefits of greater gender diversity in policing have been detailed in several studies, and include improved response to violence against women and reduction in brutality and excessive force complaints, according to the National Center for Women & Policing.

Nestor Ramos can be reached at nestor.ramos@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @NestorARamos.