Colin Ross, Yale Daily News (New Haven), October 16, 2009
On Thursday, New Haven firefighter Michael Briscoe filed a federal lawsuit against City Hall officials, claiming that New Haven’s 2003 firefighter promotional exam had a “disparate impact” on blacks and unjustly denied him promotion to lieutenant. Briscoe’s suit comes less than four months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that throwing out the same test unfairly discriminated against a group of 20 mostly white firefighters.
No black firefighters scored high enough on the test to qualify for a promotion. The city, fearing the black firefighters would sue, decided not to certify those results. The Supreme Court ruled that action unjustified, and now the black firefighters are indeed suing.
New Haven Corporation Counsel Victor Bolden said Thursday that City Hall officials will still push to certify the 2003 results, which would keep Briscoe ineligible for promotion.
{snip}
But the lawyer who brought the Supreme Court case, Karen Torre, said in a statement that Briscoe’s motion could complicate her case, Ricci v. DeStefano, which has been remanded to a lower federal court to decide how to avoid future discrimination. Since the contested 2003 test, no new lieutenants or captains have been promoted.
{snip}
In August, the Supreme Court ruled in the 5-4 decision that refusing to certify the promotional exam, which originated with an 1986 agreement reached with the firefighters’ union, violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, sex, religion or national origin. (Of the 20 firefighters who filed the lawsuit against the city, one was Hispanic and 19 were white.)
{snip}
Rosen [David Rosen, Briscoe’s lawyer] argued that City Hall officials disproportionately considered the written and oral sections when determining test scores.
According to the lawsuit, the oral section of the city exam counted for 40 percent of the score, while the written counted for 60 percent. Across the nation, Rosen wrote, public safety officials count the section as 70 percent and written section as the remaining 30. Briscoe scored the highest of all 77 candidates for lieutenant on the oral section, but his poorer performance on the written section dropped him to 24th place—too low for promotion. Had the ratio of the sections been switched, Briscoe would have been one of the top candidates, according to the lawsuit.
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Original article
(Posted on October 16, 2009)
Comments
Just keep “dumbing down” the test, until a 6 year old pass it.
White people who are aware and pay attention lose even more respect for blacks when these kinds of whining, crybaby suits come up.
This is just another attempt to try to manipulate tests, by hook or crook, so blacks might be able to get a passing grade.
If the oral test is a TEST, and not a personality contest, blacks won’t do any better on them than they do on the written portion, and for this defense attorny to say differently makes it pretty obvious his intent is to pick up a fee from the NAACP, knowing the absurdity of his case and that he won’t win.
Whites need to continue filing law suits against mentally disturbed government officials, to put them on notice that whites file suits also….and they win.
In fact, I’d like to see whites get “sue happy,” running every suspect issue through the courts in order to keep these governmental slugs aware that there are consequences to payt for discriminating against whites and giving unqualified blacks positions they don’t deserve.
lol no where on there does it say job performance factors into the promotion decision. I might feel safer with a black firefighter on the job. Racial differences account for something.
“…his poorer performance on the written section dropped him to 24th place—too low for promotion.”
In other words, this black man can’t write Standard American English. I would imagine that a lieutenant’s job includes lots of writing.
As a result of his own failure he’s suing because he cannot write. This makes no sense.
Is it inconceivable that blacks, knowing that if they do poorly on these tests that they can have these tests discarded and be hired or promoted through other means?
I had this confirmed while listening to a local black radio talk show. The host said he feared that black could no longer count on ‘doing poorly’ to be promoted.
I’ll bet that blacks have been conspiring as a group to do poorly just to make it appear that these tests are biased so that they can be promoted or hired through other racial means.
Who invented the concept of disparate impact and forced it into law? Was it George Washington Carver? Was it Martin Luther King? Was it Al Sharpton? No, it was Whitey, the suicidal marxist clown.
Oral scores for most police and fire department tests are subjective, hence the disproportionate numbers of non-whites getting high scores. Also little known is the fact that municipalities that have consent decrees with the US Govt, meaning they have to hire minorities first, start blacks, hispanics etc at a point total higher than that of whites to start the tests. What this means is that you sit down and you start at 100 points. Then points are deducted - if needed - as you go along during the interview / test. However, blacks and hispanics and other non-whites are generally are “given” extra points to start off with. So a white starts at 100 points (sometimes at 90 depending on the city etc) while non-whites start at 115 - 125. The LAPD for example was doing this for years and may still be doing it.
“Had the ratio of the sections been switched, Briscoe would have been one of the top candidates, according to the lawsuit.” Does anyone else see the humor in this statement? He’s basically telling us how to devise tests which BLACKS can pass.
This blatant racism has to stop. As a victim of it myself, I know only too well what a devastation it had on this poor firefighters morale. When I wanted to try out for the NFL, they laughed at me. Just because I need a cane to walk doe not assess my inner strength and determination. I am looking for a good lawyer to pursue my case for discrimination against the handicapped.
“Had the ratio of the sections been switched, Briscoe would have been one of the top candidates…”
Are you serious?
Just like a small child…I don’t like the outcome, so change things until I do.
Pathetic. Study harder next time.
One of the demonstrable facts that has emerged in our long, misguided struggle to make all races “equal”, is that the African response in integration remains the same, and has made absolutely no progress. The Western, White perspective on failure is to redouble our efforts, study harder, focus on self-improvement. Haven’t we all at some point heard a successful entrepreneur remark that “failure is the greatest teacher”? Don’t our parents and teachers exhort us to “learn from our mistakes”?
After centuries among us, how many Africans have gained a similar perpspective? Objective self examination is an important tool for individual advancement. It is how students, lawyers, scientists, golf pros, and store managers become better at what they do. Still, the African insists that his failure is the fault of something other than himself. The devil made him do it, White racism failed his test, the girl he raped was tempting him, the drugs made him do it. Rather than study harder, or take a course on test taking, the African in this case blames the test. It wasn’t formatted in a way that would allow him to succeed.
How long can we allow one small group of people to tie up our legal system and waste our tax dollars with this nonsense? Of course this black firefighter wants to be a captain or lieutenant. It pays better, probably has better perks, and impresses the ladies. I don’t care way one or the other, but just pass the test. Study harder. Get there on your own merits. The lives of the taxpayers are at stake, and all this guy can think about is how to cheat the system into a promotion he was unable to earn in competition with other firefighters. This isn’t good for our society on any level. It simply provides one more black man with a job and compensation that he didn’t earn, and deprives one more White man of a job and compensation that he did earn. It deprives the community of the best quality firefighters, physicians, lawyers, and teachers in favor of lower quality professionals. The “disparate impact” of affirmative action is felt by the White, taxpaying community. Who will sue on our behalf?
“Had the ratio of the sections been switched, Briscoe would have been one of the top candidates, according to the lawsuit.”
‘Does anyone else see the humor in this statement? He’s basically telling us how to devise tests which BLACKS can pass.’
+++++++++++++++
Well be fair here, it does say that’s how most FDs across the country score the exam.
However, note what someone else says about how po’ disvantigged cullid’ folk get a point bonus on the oral exam before they even sets down.
Lets not forget the racism in engineering … they brought in 6 million indians with fake degrees to replace our best and brightest engineers and throw them in the streets. 6 million indians for 4 million engineering jobs in america is ONE HUNDRED PERCENT UNEMPLOYMENT.
but whites can do or say nothing. Only one congressman stood up to microsoft when they were laying off 5000 white engineers after just bringing in another 20,000 indians.
“Who invented the concept of disparate impact and forced it into law? Was it George Washington Carver? Was it Martin Luther King? Was it Al Sharpton? No, it was Whitey, the suicidal marxist clown.”
An important point, sir/ma’am. This would not - COULD not - have happened without assistance, complicit or otherwise, from those who perhaps can only be called (regardless of the sickening connotations) “race traitors.”
The audacity of this guy.
Suing other people for his own personal failure.
Most people would be totally embarrassed and not want to shine a light on their poor performance. Not this guy. Not only that, it isn’t his fault. He deserves that job because of the color of his skin, not because the content of his character.
I am seething.
I’m waiting for somebody with enough cahones to challenge the disparate income laws. I want to see someone brave enough to pull out the mountain of evidence showing the fact that Blacks have an average IQ of 85. There’s no need to discuss the reasons they have such a low IQ; just show the facts. If it can be shown that Blacks do indeed have a lower IQ then it can be proven without a doubt that no racism was involved in Blacks’ poor test scores. It would then be expected that any position that requires high intellect would have few Blacks qualifying. Then when Blacks fail, there can be no one to blame but Blacks.
The test is clearly biased against blacks. Just look at some of the questions.
*****
A) Pete Rose
2. You’re tennis game runs over at the country club, causing you to risk running late to a dinner party at the yacht club. Do you:
A) Drive home to change into evening wear, arrive late, and apologize to the host for being tardy;
3. Pronounce the word “ask.”
Clearly the test is racist.
Well of course he wants the oral portion of the exam weighted higher. He knows that Whites will sit there and listen to any jibber-jabber from Blacks and graciously applaud everything they hear, like parents listening to a 4-year old child’s piano recital.
I have seen Whites demonstrate this sort of behavior many times at university, at church, at work - demonstrating happy acceptance of Black performances that would discredit anyone of another race. I don’t know whether it is motivated by fear, paternalism, or guilt, but it is one of the social weaknesses that is destroying our culture and people.
It’s much harder to overlook the deficiencies of such a candidate when they are displayed starkly in the results of a fair and objective test. That’s why the gentleman in question wants to reduce the weight of the written test in favor of the oral portion, where his chances of success are higher.
Who can blame him? Smooth patter and a soothing voice were enough to get Barack Obama elected to the Presidency. Far less eloquence would be required in order to silver-tongue one’s way into a fire department promotion.
“If the oral test is a TEST, and not a personality contest, blacks won’t do any better on them than they do on the written portion”
In this particular case, New Haven, the oral “board” was mandated by the city to consist in all cases of two “minorities” and one “majority” SO THAT THERE WAS NOT ANY POSSIBLE CHANCE OF ANY DISCRIMINATION ON THE PART OF BOARD MEMBERS BEING PREDISPOSED TO THOSE “OF THEIR OWN KIND”!
The thought is that having “minorities” on the board is better because they are inherently more “fair”??
Such is the way things are done in the U.S. today!!
I would think being able to read the directions on a “Fire Extinguisher” would come in handy from time to time in order to be a competent “Firefighter”.
Whoops! I should be taking my own advice about Spelling. Cajones means drawers in Spanish. Cojones means , well you know already! Cahones doesn`t mean a damn thing as far as I know which I pointed out a minute ago. COJONES is the correct spelling!
So what else is new? After living in the hellhole which is Birmingham, AL for a number of years (geuss who runs it?) from this latest piece of black whining I can deduce several things. Blacks never want to take responsibility for their own failures.Blacks seem to live in a separate universe in which the normal laws of course and effect don’t apply. Maybe if this guy studiied harder, he may have gotten a higher test score. But my main point is, that of course would mean taking responsibility for one’s own life, and not blaming whitey.
Ok, let me get this straight: how does someone score at the top of his class on an oral test but then score so poorly on a written test as to make that a moot point? Since the ability to write is nothing more than the ability to put words on paper, I have to say I find that oral exam more than a little suspicious.
Nonetheless, the answer to the problem seems pretty clear to me. If the black students are experiencing far greater difficulty with written tests, then I suppose they should work to improve their reading and writing skills. Or perhaps just learn to read and write.
Our entire country is getting dumber by the month; this is a testimony to something for nothing in America.
Our people will soon become slaves to the world as a result of nothing for nothing. India has more genius children then we have children in America, and what few good students we have in the hard sciences, not to mention history and geography, are tired from pulling the dumb ones along. Like the taxpayers.
We are cooked and there is no turning it around…we have been stupid for too long.
Don’t care if your idiot black, idiot white trash, you have lots of company and your left behind. Your just to stupid to know it.
Is this deja vu? The case went to the top and you lost. If you aren’t smart enough to know when the fight is over, it’s certainly not surprising that you couldn’t pass the test. I’m confident this guy has yet to truly EARN anything he has achieved in his life.
Too bad he did not put all this energy into studying (like the white firefighter that hired a tutor).
