During the first year of the program, thirteen workers were selected for the training program: seven blacks and six whites. Brian Weber, a young white worker who had applied to the program, was not among those selected. Brian, a talkative, likeable southerner and father of three, had been working as a blue-collar lab analyst in the Gramercy plant. His position was rated as "semiskilled." He wanted very much to enter one of the skilled jobs. Upon investigation Weber found that he had several months more seniority than two of the black workers who had been admitted into the training program. Forty-three other white workers who were also rejected had even more seniority than he did. Junior black employees were thus receiving training in preference to more senior white employees. Weber later found that none of the black workers who had been admitted to the program had themselves been the subject of any prior employment