Many corporations, municipalities, and nonprofits across the country have programs and procedures to help advance women and minorities into leadership roles.
Why? There are still few of them represented in the nation’s corner offices.
Today, all those advancement initiatives are in legal limbo.
The Supreme Court decided yesterday that a group of New Haven, CT, white firefighters, and one Hispanic firefighter, were discriminated against when a promotions test they took and passed was scrapped by city officials because no African American firefighters passed the exam.
The white firefighters claimed they studied hard, did well on the test, and should be granted promotions. City of New Haven officials felt the disparity in results would lead to lawsuits against the city by minority firefighters.
The fear of a lawsuit was justified to a degree. In many cases, organizations have thrown out such tests if they saw a disproportionate number of minorities not doing well because suits brought in this regard often favored the group that alleged it was adversely impacted.
At the heart of the ruling is one huge, pressing, forever gnawing question on equality in the workplace — can you discriminate against one group to help another group that has been universally discriminated against for so long they are still not finding a level playing field?
Here the Supreme Court, in its 5 to 4 ruling, said “no.”
“This is one more decision defining the parameters of reverse discrimination, in essence saying that the discarding of test results not only helps those not passing and promoted, but hurts those who passed and are scheduled for promotion. In other words, discrimination has two sides,” says Gary Chaison, professor of industrial relations in the Graduate School of Management at Clark University in Worcester, MA.
He believes the decision with make employers more cautious when establishing such tests because if the results are not acceptable they won’t just be able to throw them out.
“The irony here,” he adds, “is that testing is used in civil service positions such as police officers and firefighters as an element in the promotion decision to avoid arbitrariness and favoritism that was so rampant for many years, and in New Haven the test had been thrown out because of its impact.”
Clearly the white firefighters believe they were discriminated against. And clearly, this test will lead to few, if any, minorities firefighters being promoted in New Haven.
Discrimination at fire departments across the country seems to have been rampant given the many lawsuits that have been filed by minorities.
These tests have come under fire not only in New Haven.
The problem has surfaced in the Houston fire department. This from Aframnews.com:
Seven Black firefighters are suing the city. They claim the written multiple-choice test, which accounts for 100 of an officer’s 122 promotion points, represents “systemic discrimination” against African-Americans. They contend that “Selection rates for African-Americans are abysmally smaller than for White candidates.”
Did the white firefighters just want it more? That has been the argument.
But the bottom line is, minorities continue to be underrepresented in the top seats. Why?
This is indeed the key question of our time. Any answers?
June 30th, 2009 at 9:20 am
If the city believes the results of the test unfairly prevented some otherwise qualified minorities from attaining the score necessary to qualify for promotion, then the problem lies with the test instrument. The city can go back and revise the instrument before next administerin the test.
In this case, I must agree with the court that it is not appropriate to set aside the test just because you don’t like the results. We should not treat any group like that.
June 30th, 2009 at 10:30 am
You ask a wonderful question, “can you discriminate against one group to help another group that has been universally discriminated against for so long they are still not finding a level playing field”
There is no easy answer. I live in New Haven grew up in one of it’s poorest communities. There is a huge gap between blacks and whites in New Haven, with regard to education, and access to advancement opportunities. Yet I also agree that discriminating against one group (those that passed the first test) in order to help those (the black firefighters) who due to universal discrimination in all other areas of their lives were at a disadvantage from the start is not the answer. It is like passing a high school senior who can’t read or write because they are black and there is a disproportionate amount of blacks dropping out. Passing this student does a disservice to them. It hurts them not having basic survival skills.
The problem is in the training. An assessment should be done to see why most black firefighters are not passing their exams. To go back to their academy training, to see if there is additional help that can be provided on the front end instead of patching things up on the back end. It does a disservice to the black firefighters, and to the community they have been assigned to serve.
June 30th, 2009 at 11:23 am
You make a very good point Boni. No one has really asked why the black firefighters didn’t pass the test.
July 8th, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Racism is prejudice with the power to impose prejudice. In my entire 48 years, I have never met one black person who can impose prejudice against me. There is absolutely prejudice imposed on all African-Americans in our country that does indeed dispose the predispostion of greatness. I do not care what any one says or attempts to justify an altenative viewpoint.
This prejudice certainly is not constant. There certainly is not necessarily Americans who are Americans that do recognize what should be our common ground. However, there exists a huge group of white Americans who believe they are so far from being prejudice against another color that they impose rules that allegedly creates a balance. Congress is absolutely infested with them.And it has been for about 40 years or more. Of course, Congresspeople may be another color altogether and collectively I might add.
THe ideology of a country that is truely free in reality was achieved over 100 years after our Revolutionary War. Our Constitution is only since that time become a reality. Our Constitution actually provides us all with tremendous advantages that is found no where else in the world. It is my sincere opinion that you take away those great advantages when you attempt to provide any people or group of people more of an advantage.
Except for perhaps medical evaluations, the systematic determination as to your race or color should be stricken. Even the US census, the determination of race should be stricken. As long as you are an American, that should be the only point of reference. Until it is so, the white people will continue to attempt to equal something that is truely already equal.
You cannot blame any one for taking advantage of anything that could get you ahead. And if there exist a willing enabler to make those advantages available to you, particularly because of what you are, than they are creating an imbalalnce.
Then again, what do I know, I am a pathetic imbecile.