Nation IN BRIEF : NEW JERSEY : Settlement Reached on Hiring Bias Suit

The state of New Jersey agreed to pay more than $7 million to blacks and women who were denied jobs as prison guards, police and sheriff’s officers because of allegedly biased testing and hiring policies. Some 450 blacks and women who were rejected will be offered those jobs on a priority basis, government officials said. The settlement of a 1988 lawsuit by the Justice Department’s civil rights division was the second-largest ever obtained by the federal government in a job bias case involving state or local government. The City of Chicago agreed in 1989 and 1991 to pay $10.7 million to 666 police sergeants denied promotion because of alleged bias.