re: #335 LeonidasOfSparta

Sotomayor’s ruling against the white firefighters claim of reverse-descrimination says it all— IMHO

[Link: abcnews.go.com…]

“Marcarelli got the top score on a promotions exam. He was first in line for captain. But not everyone did so well.
In fact, not one of the 28 black candidates, in a field of 118, scored high enough to be promoted.
For New Haven, that was a problem.”

(That doesn’t make them unqualified to be firemen, it makes the ones who took the test unqualified for the promotion to CAPTAIN. )

“Sotomayor and two fellow appellate judges dismissed the white firefighters’ claims — and 2,000 pages of court papers and filings — in a one-paragraph ruling.
“We are not unsympathetic to the plaintiffs’ expression of frustration,” but the firefighters who filed the case don’t have a “viable” claim under the law, the opinion said.”

If a firefighter, regardless of color, cannot pass the various tests required by the JOB, then they don’t get the promotion— and that is NOT RACIST.

But to toss out the EXAM so that unqualified men CAN be promoted is as racist as can be. To dumb down the “testing process” because someone of color failed says, in essence, “awww you poor person of color, you will never be able to master this difficult test, we will give you the promotion without it because you are such a pitiful person of color.”

What a wretched mindset it is that “rules” from the bench in this fashion.

U.C. Berkeley and many top universities are trying to eliminate the SAT from admissions standards, for this exact reason. They want to increase “disadavantaged minority” admissions (which specifically refers only to Blacks and Hispanics; other minorities, such as Asians, Indians, Arabs, Jews, etc. do well on the tests, so they are automatically disqualified as being “disadvantaged”), which would necessarily entail decreasing Asian admissions, since there are a limited number of slots. But SAT scores are a stricking point, because they are standardized, and often contradict the inflated GPAs some students get from “raise their self-esteem”-style teachers. So, the top schools are now throwing out the SAT as a neutral benchmark, and denying admission to the highest scorers — for no other reason than it suits UC’s agenda.

Sotomayor would agree with this policy, obviously.