Deputy Fire Commissioner Douglas White said 14.7 percent of recruits in Fire Academy classes over the last three years were minorities, compared with 6.6 percent between 1990 and 2001.
Ten women graduated from the academy in the last three years, compared with only 8 graduated from 1990 to 2001, White said Thursday at a hearing before the City Council's Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services.
Yet 92 percent of firefighters remain white males _ a figure several Council members called unacceptable in a city where whites make up only 46 percent of the population.
``It would be hard for the department to get any less diverse,'' said Councilwoman Yvette Clarke, who chairs the committee. She said only 3 percent of firefighters are black and that the FDNY has just 28 women firefighters, comprising less than 1 percent of the department.
She said some firehouses had yet to build bathrooms for women firefighters.
``There is a slow progress, ever too slow, in trying to reach the needs of women and minorities, in terms of joining the department,'' White said
