Supreme Court backs New Haven Firefighters

[UGAalum94]

Personally, when the firefighters come to put out a fire at my house, I don't think that a standardized written test or an oral exam or interviews will have measured the skill set I'm going to want them to have.

However, when it comes to promotion to leadership roles and training of other firefighters, I think the tests probably have some merit.

The article I linked above goes over the tests and other tests that can be used.

The white firefighters in the suit claim that every question on the test came from the readily available study guide. If that's true, it's hard to figure out, why the test would be particularly racially or ethnically biased, except as the results shook out, which is the heart of a disparate impact claim.

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

The white firefighters in the suit claim that every question on the test came from the readily available study guide. If that's true, it's hard to figure out, why the test would be particularly racially or ethnically biased, except as the results shook out, which is the heart of a disparate impact claim.

Hence, the test is not necessarily deemed discriminatory by intent. It isn't like the SAT where people say the items are geared toward a particularly social class and so forth.

The issue becomes what is it about the preparation for the test, recruiting (?) of firefighters who will take the test, etc. that may result in racial disparities in test results. They could always conclude that the Black and Hispanic test takers were just ill prepared for the test or sucky test takers. That's a weighty assumption and claim.

[UGAalum94]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Hence, the test is not necessarily deemed discriminatory by intent. It isn't like the SAT where people say the items are geared toward a particularly social class and so forth.

The issue becomes what is it about the preparation for the test, recruiting (?) of firefighters who will take the test, etc. that may result in racial disparities in test results. They could always conclude that the Black and Hispanic test takers were just ill prepared for the test or sucky test takers. That's a weighty assumption and claim.

I think the pool of test takers was self-selected. I've never seen an interview with the non-white applicants who took the test addressing what caused them to fair poorly.

[Thetagirl218]

I agree with the Supreme Court Decision. I am also surprised it had to get this far! One would think that lower level judges would be able to figure this one out! I think it shows a clear example that reverse discrimination is real and need to also be prevented.

[madmax]

Originally Posted by UGAalum94

Personally, when the firefighters come to put out a fire at my house, I don't think that a standardized written test or an oral exam or interviews will have measured the skill set I'm going to want them to have.

However, when it comes to promotion to leadership roles and training of other firefighters, I think the tests probably have some merit.

The article I linked above goes over the tests and other tests that can be used.

The white firefighters in the suit claim that every question on the test came from the readily available study guide. If that's true, it's hard to figure out, why the test would be particularly racially or ethnically biased, except as the results shook out, which is the heart of a disparate impact claim.

STUDYING to become an engineer, accountant, doctor, lawyer or in this case a firefighter is not a high priority for most minorites.

Breaking the Silence
By HENRY LOUIS GATES JR.

Published: August 1, 2004


Go into any inner-city neighborhood," Barack Obama said in his keynote address to the Democratic National Convention, "and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach kids to learn. They know that parents have to parent, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white." In a speech filled with rousing applause lines, it was a line that many black Democratic delegates found especially galvanizing. Not just because they agreed, but because it was a home truth they'd seldom heard a politician say out loud.

Why has it been so difficult for black leaders to say such things in public, without being pilloried for "blaming the victim"? Why the huge flap over Bill Cosby's insistence that black teenagers do their homework, stay in school, master standard English and stop having babies? Any black person who frequents a barbershop or beauty parlor in the inner city knows that Mr. Cosby was only echoing sentiments widely shared in the black community.

"If our people studied calculus like we studied basketball," my father, age 91, once remarked as we drove past a packed inner-city basketball court at midnight, "we'd be running M.I.T." When my brother and I were growing up in the 50's, our parents convinced us that the "blackest" thing that we could be was a doctor or a lawyer. We admired Hank Aaron and Willie Mays, but our real heroes were people like Thurgood Marshall, Dr. Benjamin Mays and Mary McLeod Bethune.

Yet in too many black neighborhoods today, academic achievement has actually come to be stigmatized. "We are just not the same people anymore," says the mayor of Memphis, Dr. Willie W. Herenton. "We are worse off than we were before Brown v. Board," says Dr. James Comer, a child psychiatrist at Yale. "And a large part of the reason for this is that we have abandoned our own black traditional core values, values that sustained us through slavery and Jim Crow segregation."

Making it, as Mr. Obama told me, "requires diligent effort and deferred gratification. Everybody sitting around their kitchen table knows that."

"Americans suffer from anti-intellectualism, starting in the White House," Mr. Obama went on. "Our people can least afford to be anti-intellectual." Too many of our children have come to believe that it's easier to become a black professional athlete than a doctor or lawyer. Reality check: according to the 2000 census, there were more than 31,000 black physicians and surgeons, 33,000 black lawyers and 5,000 black dentists. Guess how many black athletes are playing professional basketball, football and baseball combined. About 1,400. In fact, there are more board-certified black cardiologists than there are black professional basketball players. "We talk about leaving no child behind," says Dena Wallerson, a sociologist at Connecticut College. "The reality is that we are allowing our own children to be left behind." Nearly a third of black children are born into poverty. The question is: why?

Scholars such as my Harvard colleague William Julius Wilson say that the causes of black poverty are both structural and behavioral. Think of structural causes as "the devil made me do it," and behavioral causes as "the devil is in me." Structural causes are faceless systemic forces, like the disappearance of jobs. Behavioral causes are self-destructive life choices and personal habits. To break the conspiracy of silence, we have to address both of these factors.

"A lot of us," Mr. Obama argues, "hesitate to discuss these things in public because we think that if we do so it lets the larger society off the hook. We're stuck in an either/or mentality - that the problem is either societal or it's cultural."

It's important to talk about life chances - about the constricted set of opportunities that poverty brings. But to treat black people as if they're helpless rag dolls swept up and buffeted by vast social trends - as if they had no say in the shaping of their lives - is a supreme act of condescension. Only 50 percent of all black children graduate from high school; an estimated 64 percent of black teenage girls will become pregnant. (Black children raised by female "householders" are five times as likely to live in poverty as those raised by married couples.) Are white racists forcing black teenagers to drop out of school or to have babies?

Mr. Cosby got a lot of flak for complaining about children who couldn't speak standard English. Yet it isn't a derogation of the black vernacular - a marvelously rich and inventive tongue - to point out that there's a language of the marketplace, too, and learning to speak that language has generally been a precondition for economic success, whoever you are. When we let black youth become monolingual, we've limited their imaginative and economic possibilities.

These issues can be ticklish, no question, but they're badly served by silence or squeamishness. Mr. Obama showed how to get the balance right. We've got to create as many opportunities as we can for the worst-off - and "make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life." But values matter, too. We can't talk about the choices people have without talking about the choices people make.

Reaad the rest at http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/01/op...1gates.html?hp

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by madmax

STUDYING to become an engineer, accountant, doctor, lawyer or in this case a firefighter is not a high priority for most minorites.

Yeah, because you know soooo many minorities and you know what their professional goals are.

So you've read one article. Big freaking deal.

[madmax]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

Yeah, because you know soooo many minorities and you know what their professional goals are.

So you've read one article. Big freaking deal.

I don't have to know any. I am quoting the messiah and I think a black guy who is President does know a little about Black America.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by madmax

I am quoting the messiah and I think a black guy who is President does know a little about Black America.

The Messiah? Really? Obama is not the end all, be all when it comes to black people.

[DaemonSeid]

Originally Posted by knight_shadow

Obviously.




The Messiah? Really? Obama is not the end all, be all when it comes to black people.

Stop feeding the troll.

Take the feedbag and step 20 feed back from the holding pen.

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Stop feeding the troll.

Take the feedbag and step 20 feed back from the holding pen.

I know I shouldn't be going back and forth with an idiot. I've already invested too much energy to stop now lol

Plus, I need to do something to keep me from actually working

[madmax]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

Stop feeding the troll.

Take the feedbag and step 20 feed back from the holding pen.

A troll?

That is coming from a guy like DaemonSeid that goes to rallies to defend murderers like Mumia.

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by madmax

I don't have to know any. I am quoting the messiah and I think a black guy who is President does know a little about Black America.

That doesn't give you the right to say anything because you still don't know what you're talking about. So sit down and shut the hell up.

[madmax]

Originally Posted by Munchkin03

That doesn't give you the right to say anything because you still don't know what you're talking about. So sit down and shut the hell up.

You know I am right. That is why you are mad.


Do your people ever call you a sellout for going to college?

[Munchkin03]

Originally Posted by madmax

You know I am right. That is why you are mad.


Do your people ever call you a sellout for going to college?

I'm not mad. I find you entertaining, especially when you insinuated that MysticCat was black.

Why would they call me a sellout? I'm only doing what I was brought up to do. My parents, grandparents, all my aunts and uncles, all their children, and all of my siblings hold at least a bachelor's degree.

[KSUViolet06]

Originally Posted by madmax

You know I am right. That is why you are mad.

You need a hobby. Maybe some knitting?