Ap National News – May 21 ,2007:
The mostly white Fire Department of New York discouraged racial diversity by using recruitment exams that inadvertently discriminated against blacks and Hispanics, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Monday in a civil rights lawsuit.
The complaint alleges that the Fire Department administered exams in 1999 and 2002 that, while not purposely or obviously racist, were littered with SAT-like questions that are do not test an applicant’s ability to fight fires.
It cites a wide disparity between the scores of whites and those of blacks and Hispanics on the exams taken in 1999 and 2002. Because of the results, blacks and Hispanics “were underrepresented among higher-scoring applicants” on a list of eligible applicants from which the Fire Department intends to draw entry-level firefighters through May 2008.
You might have learned by now that scoring highest on any test is not necessarily a reflection of intelligence. Construction of the headline is no less racist than the test probably was.
Newsday certainly knew better when they wrote the headline for their article.
“littered with SAT-like questions that are do not test an applicant’s ability to fight fires.”
Are do not test? Who wrote this? Clearly they would not have been able to pass the test.
You might have learned by now that scoring highest on any test is not necessarily a reflection of intelligence.
Pray tell, what is it a reflection of, then?
Granted, the smartest may not always make the highest scores, but the dumbest will probably make the lowest scores. Or are you just bitter over not being able to get into State U. because of your SAT’s?
The U.S. Department of Justice does not think english and math skills are necessary to fight fires. I wonder what skills the U.S. Department of Justice thinks a firefighter should have?
1…just how exactly would one go about writing a test that intentionally discriminates against a race? And, make it inconspicuous at the same time.
Is the idea that you piss off the target race so they can’t answer correctly, or what? Or, use big words? Do tell….
Or maybe this is just a sign that education to those groups is flagging…or the cultures they have don’t match with the American school methodology.
Either way, tests based on critical thinking, especially timed tests, would be applicable to firefighters, as that is a job that is not just physical, but requires you to think about what you’re doing several steps ahead, recognize how a fire is spreading, know the properties of different types of fires, and recognize dangerous situations based on specific cues. More likely than not, the test was engineered around figuring out how well the candidates could handle the information they’d need.
Hmm, seems to me that critics of the fire department are saying blacks can’t read.
In typical spinning fashion article fails to address the whole story and the most important reason why this lawsuit is so insane… After 2002 city DID change the exam in a very appropriate and clever way. They kept the toughness level of the questions, just directly applied them to the firefighting tasks! Hence, Govt. can’t sue them for those tests (so the suit is for old tests, if you noticed). Why sue city now? It have been reported that Govt. pressured Bloomberg to ease the tests or be sued. He refused. Hence the lawsuit.
Lawsuit also ignores huge amounts city invested in special firefighting job fairs in minority neighbourhoods, trying to entice more applicants from these communities. (Article mentions it slightly/indirectly).
PS Not in any way related with NYC govt. or NYFD, working and living outside NYC but close enough to learn details…
How does a written test discriminate racially?
It’s pretty easy to discriminate racially on a written test. Just have questions that require cultural knowledge.
Aw there they go again. Injecting an intellect requirement is the testing process. Bad bad racist people.
“Cultural knowledge?” Why, do minorities born here grow up in a different country?
This idea of “cultural knowledge” holding anyone back is BS. It’s claptrap designed to excuse poor performance from a group, and it does NOTHING to raise standards. Expect excellence and you will get it. Coddle and excuse poor performance and you’ll get that instead.
It’s called systemic racism. When you create a test that is passable by people in your culture but incomprehensible to people of other cultures. It can be a question as simple as “Which bowl of porridge did little Red Riding Hood eat all up?” Most westerners could answer this question, but asians might not have a clue since that fairy tale isn’t part of their culture. Most of the time, systemic racism isn’t even intentional, but it is still discriminatory.
In Canada, the government used to say that in order to get a management job, you needed a university degree. College wasn’t good enough. (Here university is harder than college) This meant that most First Nations people and foreigners could get a job at a low level in the gov’mint but never get promoted. First Nations people had a very difficult time leaving their community and living in a totally different culture. Many of them who tried, dropped out. And foreigners who already had an education from some other country didn’t want to go to school again, they just wanted to wait until their existing education was recognized. That requirement has changed and now you need the degree or an equivalent amount of work experience.
#14 – Yes, minorities who are born here come from different cultures. Thanks for your limited, jackass opinion.
They could at least have given us a few examples. I’m wondering what kinds of questions are easier for white people. 😕
Maybe some not-so-bright testers need to read a book. A lot of books. There is a larger world beyond the immediate neighborhood.
A story; years ago in Chicago, a major fire broke out in a high rise, and the 911 caller only knew the building’s vanity address, “1” something plaza. The 911 operator didn’t know the corresponding real address. That’s fine; but the operator didn’t know how to figure it out by, say, calling a newspaper office or a TV station, so the people in the fire died while minutes flew by and no one in the call center could reason out a way to look up the address. THAT is a failure of reasoning skills and gereral knowledge that comes from not reading books or newspapers, never going to libraries, not knowing how to deal with a situation where you need to find information, not knowing how to *think*. Shorthand: dumb. Not bright. Should not be hired to staff critical positions.
13: Yes, they do live in a different country. College educated people tend to clump together geographically and never meet the other nations.
Let’s name some:
1. Suburbland, now moving into the cities. Both wealthy and non-. More or less the gated white world, tho the fences may be more metaphor than actual.
2. City poor.
3. Rural poor.
4. The West. Different breed.
5. Wealthy city people.
6. Various immigrant populations, grouped together and gaining separate identities.
7. The really well off.
8. The rich.
9. People so rich that rich people don’t even see them. More like ghosts in the machine.
Examples…give me an example of a relevant question that a black or hispanic might not be able to answer because of their heritage.
Hmm, you never hear of this sort of thing in the IT certification exams…I wonder why?
#19 – Examples…give me an example of a relevant question that a black or hispanic might not be able to answer because of their heritage.
Who has their face printed on the hundred dollar bill?
What percentage of cash do you get back on Discover Card purchases?
Which mutual funds… oh… You asked for relevant… sorry….
An example would be a question that only someone who had the opportunity to go to university could answer. The question isn’t race related. I explained that. It discriminates systemically by eliminating large groups of people who do not normally attend university. Minorities fall into that group.
I heard there weren’t enough questions about basketball, rap music, and getting your bitches pregnant that skewed the NYFD test into the bounds of being racist against blacks.
I want to see real examples, as in questions from the actual test. Hypothetical examples are a waste of time; maybe all the questions were Seinfeld triva.
So… how is this news again?
#23 – I don’t have the actual test, and it is unlikely that I’ll ever apply to be a member of the NYFD because I’m too old and live too far away and am deathly afraid of dying in a fire.
So you’ll just have to accept my attempt at humorous questions… But I really like your idea about it being made of Seinfeld trivia.
Minority groups use this sort of disparate impact theory all the time. That’s why the SAT is being watered down over the years, and now switched to an achievement test. It’s also why the PSAT scores double verbal since girls do better on that part. In general they don’t want these tests being used to score applicants at all.
Aah, I love the smell of ideological dogma in the morning;
#1 – alger
“You might have learned by now that scoring highest on any test is not necessarily a reflection of intelligence. Construction of the headline is no less racist than the test probably was.”
That’s a nice, idiotic statement to open the thread with.
The test – like all such tests, for decades – is what is termed ‘culture-fair’, meaning it’s results are consistent across cultural and socioeconomic subpopulations, or, in words you can possibly understand, that means the test does not in any way give any advantage or disadvantage to rich or poor, black or white, rural or urban.
If you would think for about 2 microseconds before mindlessly parroting PC bullshit, you would realize that if there was anything objectionable about the test, it would instantly be front-page news, since it has already been professionally dissected and picked apart by thousands of people who are diligently searching with all their night for exactly the sort of bias you think everyone but you is too fucking stupid to notice.
Do you actually think that all the uncountable civil-rights organizations and activists in present-day America would simply sit by and ignore a test that put blacks at an unfair disadvantage?
Jeebus X on a stick, with both hands bloody!
#13 – Ascii King
“An example would be a question that only someone who had the opportunity to go to university could answer. The question isn’t race related. I explained that. It discriminates systemically by eliminating large groups of people who do not normally attend university. Minorities fall into that group.”
Another lame attempt at blowing bullshit PC smoke up our collective ass.
Tests of g are tests of reasoning, not knowledge. It’s about how well you think, not how much you know. There are plenty of tests of knowledge out there, but they’re irrelevant here, it’s intelligence testing that’s at issue.
Anyway, it seems like you haven’t been on an American college campus since 1955 or so. Go take a look at the mainstream school of your choice – meaning not Oral Roberts or Bob Jones or others of that ilk – and try and tell me if the number of minority-group members doesn’t equal or exceed that of white males of European descent.
If that sort of ridiculous crap is the best you can come up with, do like alger there and just clam up, since you must realize by now that you’re not fooling anyone…
These tired, bogus accusations of “biased” tests have become nothing but pathetic attempts to deny the reality, that different groups of people have different degrees of intelligence.
Different does not equal “inferior”, you fucking PC asswipes. When will you ever get your heads out of your asses long enough to realize that YOU are the deluded racists, claiming that intelligence is the sole measure of human worth!
People should be equal – in rights, opportunities and responsibilities. But no two humans who ever existed were EVER equal mentally, physically, or morally. And if no two people are equal, no two groups of people can possibly be equal. And every bit of exposure to the real world tells any rational (unbrainwashed) person that.
Every person is equal, because everyone’s unique combination of traits adds up, in every case, to a 100% human person. But no one can be identical to anyone else, not even identical twins. People differ. And “different” is not a value judgement; it does not signify “better” or “worse.” It means “not the same.” And that’s all.
Blacks score lower on IQ tests, on average, than whites. This does not make whites superior. Asians score higher than whites. This does not make Asians superior. They are group averages, and can be useful in matters of social policy, etc – but in everyday life, individual differences completely overshadow group differences, for most purposes.
“Is a white man smarter than a black man?”
The only way that can be answered is:
“Which white man? And which black man?”
Understanding that groups differ, and that that difference matters, does not eliminate the ethical requirement that we judge each individual as an individual.
Denying racial differences makes you PC jerkoffs think, smugly, that you’re “open-minded” and “liberal”, but it really does nothing but prove that you’ve been brainwashed into neo-Marxist faux-egalitarian groupthink that has the ultimate goal of eradicating individualism.
And that makes you not only gullible suckas, but also dangerous idiots.
Que?
The issue here as it regards the FDNY Entrance test ,relates to the failure of the FDNY to validate the test and furthermore, failing to address the obvious resulting disparity in the score. In addition, as now reported by the DOJ, is the failure of the test to measure relevance with respect to score and performance in the Academy or on the job, post training.
Unfortunately, most of the comments made here are made by those who believe they’re qualified to comment and they’re not as they’re not trained nor expert enough to understand the language and concepts of skills and knowledge assessment.
The privileged want to retain the privilege and those without the benefit of privilege, want proven fairness and equitable treatment as a result. Unfortunately, the Mayor, the FDNY brass and others want to defer justice and fair assessment in exchange for maintenance of the status quo, purely as a result of habitual ignorance. Yo Bloomie, stop the stall, and get it right, something every one should want.
Issue Intelligent
I’m late to this entry, which Lauren the Bigot and fellow travelers have tried to turn into another racist rant. Actually, there is nothing new about the legal theory that is controlling in this case, it has been part of discrimination law since the 1980s. If a test is not work-related, then it can be used as a pretext to discriminate against women and/or minorities. We can tell if a test is work-related by examining it to determine whether the questions are relevant to the work at issue. For example, a question about water pressure in hydrants would be relevant to firefighting but not to being a nurse’s aid. The case was correctly decided.
Using tests to discriminate dates back to the Jim Crow era when Southern states would use literacy tests, often graded wrongly, to keep blacks and Hispanics from voting.
Kudos to the commenters who got it right. Shame on SN for race baiting.
#30, Podesta, Bullshit.
For example, a question about water pressure in hydrants would be relevant to firefighting but not to being a nurse’s aid.
Actually you are quite wrong. To take the fire hydrant pressure for example. If an intramuscular or subcutaneous injection is done too quickly, the pressure from the syringe orifice will actually tear the flesh causing the patient great discomfort and possibly hemorrhaging. Simple physics of hydraulic pressure would apply to both candidates. Yes, there can be a relationship. But your example does not differentiate between races, only between occupations.
Lauren makes a very good case, even if I don’t 100% agree. But your idea of only work related questions do not answer the question of what would be a race biased question. These tests were not administered in a biased manner, every applicant had to take one so forget your Jim Crow argument.
Lastly, what did SN write to deserve being called a race baiter? I think you are the pot calling the kettle black.