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April 30, 2009
What a fabulous anacdote
But in the case the Supreme Court is deciding today, Ricci v. DeStefano, the idea is that the test is inherently "biased" against black people because black people haven't been doing well on it. In 2003, the highest a black candidate scored for a captaincy was 16th place, behind twelve whites and three Latinos. New Haven's city service board refused to certify the results, and now 18 candidates are suing on the basis of, for one, the Civil Rights Act of 1964--the very set of laws that transformed life for black Americans not so long ago. ... Plaintiff Frank Ricci understood this. He's dyslexic. Instead of doing poorly on the test and charging discrimination, he had textbooks read onto tape, worked with a study group, and practiced hard. He placed sixth out of 77. Any notion that this is too much to ask of someone with more melanin--or even with a different "racial history"--is nonsensical at best and gruesome at worst.Moving Beyond Bias
What a wonder example of the triumph of will over biological limitations.
Posted by OneEyedMan at April 30, 2009 10:11 AM
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