Supreme Court backs New Haven Firefighters

[sigmadiva]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

The racialized comparison doesn't work as well when the pool of test takers are all immigrants and/or racial and ethnic minorities.

I think that people need to remember the implications of assuming "oh...the minorities just didn't prepare well enough" whenever there's a disparity in outcome. Probability statistics aside, it is not uncommon for organizations concerned with equal opportunity to look at the distribution of test results.

ehh, I guess....The test I took is a general, national test. It just so happened that the students in my class were either immigrants or racial minorities. The Med Tech school down the street has mostly White students taking the same exact test. I see your point here, but I really don't agree.

I think in the era of the Obamas (Barack and Michelle) it may become harder to argue for a racial difference.

[Little32]

I have been hearing discussions about the implications of this ruling for affirmative action because of the precedent that it sets for the measures that organizations can take to ensure diversity. I am interested in reading the language of the ruling to see exactly what it provided for.

Seems the city messed up here; it did not do due diligence to determine whether there was a justifiable reason for dismissing the results. I am of the mind that there was something amiss at some phase in the process to create these kinds of results (along the lines of what Phil already outlined.)

Also, reverse discrimination. :neutral:

[KSigkid]

Originally Posted by Little32

I have been hearing discussions about the implications of this ruling for affirmative action because of the precedent that it sets for the measures that organizations can take to ensure diversity. I am interested in reading the language of the ruling to see exactly what it provided for.

Seems the city messed up here; it did not do due diligence to determine whether there was a justifiable reason for dismissing the results. I am of the mind that there was something amiss at some phase in the process to create these kinds of results (along the lines of what Phil already outlined.)

Also, reverse discrimination. :neutral:

Here's the opinion itself: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinio...df/07-1428.pdf

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by sigmadiva

I think in the era of the Obamas (Barack and Michelle) it may become harder to argue for a racial difference.

Absolutely nothing's changed. LOL.

White people, in general, essentially voted for Obama based on a cost and benefit analysis and because they decided to choose gender over race.

Stop listening to disillusioned people who think social phenomena are a matter of 1+1=2. LOL.

[Little32]

Originally Posted by KSigkid

Here's the opinion itself: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinio...df/07-1428.pdf

Thanks.

[SydneyK]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

White people, in general, essentially voted for Obama based on a cost and benefit analysis and because they decided to choose gender over race.

Granted, you put the "in general" caveat in there, but I think this is an unfounded generalization. I'll agree that some white people (and probably some black people, too) voted for Obama based on a cost v. benefit analysis. But to accuse white people of choosing gender over race is as offensive as me accusing black people of choosing race over gender. There isn't always a race- or gender-related motivation.

/end rant

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by SydneyK

...accusing black people of choosing race over gender

Obama is both Black and a man.

A more proper generalization would be that Blacks, in general, voted for Obama based on both a cost and benefits analysis and based on race (which intersected with gender for him).

I agree. Thanks.

[sigmadiva]

Originally Posted by DrPhil

Absolutely nothing's changed. LOL.

I agree.

White people, in general, essentially voted for Obama based on a cost and benefit analysis and because they decided to choose gender over race.

Stop listening to disillusioned people who think social phenomena are a matter of 1+1=2. LOL.

True, but I think "people" are going to point to the Obamas and say, "See, they made it". Is it right? No. Is it fair? No.

The issue that I have with this particular case is that how did it *happen* that the Black firemen did not do as well as the Whites / Hispanic? Because given an equal playing field, i.e., all firemen had access to the study guide, they were all aware of the nature of the exam, they were all given the same exam under the same conditions, then where is the discrepancy that caused the outcome with the exam itself?

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by sigmadiva

True, but I think "people" are going to point to the Obamas and say, "See, they made it". Is it right? No. Is it fair? No.

We don't really care what confused people will say, do we?

Originally Posted by sigmadiva

The issue that I have with this particular case is that how did it *happen* that the Black firemen did not do as well as the Whites / Hispanic? Because given an equal playing field, i.e., all firemen had access to the study guide, they were all aware of the nature of the exam, they were all given the same exam under the same conditions, then where is the discrepancy that caused the outcome with the exam itself?

We wouldn't know all of this.

The court ruled that they can't throw out the results becase of a fear of a lawsuit. I definitely agree.

[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

[DaemonSeid]

That's like what...the 3rd time I have seen you post this exact article...what...you keep this on "speed post" or something?

[knight_shadow]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

That's like what...the 3rd time I have seen you post this exact article...what...you keep this on "speed post" or something?

[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.

[sigmadiva]

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.

This statement is so stupid, it is not even worth commenting on, but I will.

Granted, the article you quoted has a lot of truth in it. But, there is a great deal of history and social issues that underlie the problem. The basic one being that you can be White and dumb in this country and still "get by". If you are Black and dumb, the outcome of your life is so much more depressing.

[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.