McGowan v. Burstein

OPINION OF THE COURT

Chief Judge Wachtler.

Article V, § 6 of our State Constitution requires that, as far *732as practicable, the merit and fitness of candidates for appointments and promotions in the civil service be ascertained by competitive examination. The primary question presented by this appeal is whether, consistent with this constitutional requirement, such examinations may be subject to zone scoring, a grading method which assigns a single grade to a range of raw scores. The letter grades A-F or a pass/fail grading system are familiar, but extreme, illustrations. A more subtle example is…