re: #85 Daria Emmons

I want to add that the mere fact that no black people passed is not considered PROOF of racism in the test. But it is considered EVIDENCE of racism. You may rely upon other pieces of evidence to prove the test was not considered racist. I just wanted to clarify that.

Hardly. It’s just evidence that those people weren’t qualified at the time the test was administered to be management. We know nothing of the background of these failed firefighters and have no way to measure their inherent capability to pass any test, let alone a firefighting management test. Did they study? What kinds of annual reviews did they recieve? Have they demonstrated leadership initiative in their prior job performance? Have they made efforts to broaden their professional experience with job-specific or general management training?

With respect to the test results, you say that they are “considered evidence of racism”. But, I could make the case that there’s just as much substantive evidence that these men perhaps shouldn’t have been hired in the first place. Of course, my argument wouldn’t be evidence, but a conclusion. With your analogy, you offer no evidence, just supposition.

Racism requires an intentional action, a consciousness of guilt, if you will . Can you point to any evidence that was offered in this case that showed this test was designed with malice aforethought to be racially discriminative? Probably not. And if you can’t, how can a judge rule that it was a discriminative test?