I think your statistics aren't quite right Jerry. Here's what I found when I looked up the specifics of the Ricci case:
The passage rate for the Captain exam was: 16 (64%) of the 25 whites; 3 (38%) of the 8 blacks; 3 (38%) of the 8 Hispanics. The top 9 scorers included 7 whites and 2 Hispanics; given that there were 7 Captain vacancies when the tests were administered, and that the "Rule of Three" in the City Charter mandates that a civil service position be filled from among the three individuals with the highest scores on the exam, it appeared that no blacks and at most two Hispanics would be eligible for promotion. The passage rate for the Lieutenant exam was: 25 (58%) of the 43 whites; 6 (32%) of the 19 blacks; 3 (20%) of the 15 Hispanics. All the top 10 scorers were white; given that there were 8 vacancies, under the "Rule of Three" it appeared that no blacks or Hispanics would be eligible for promotion. So black applicants were passing at half the rate of white candidates. This was the basis for the consideration of tossing the exam as a "disparate impact" upon minorities. It was also noted that a neighboring city used a different test and a different weighting (New Haven made the written exam 60% of the final score) and the neighboring town got proportionally much more uniform results. Anyway, right or wrong, the test did have a disparate impact on the promotion of minority candidates. Under existing law that was enough to let the city toss the results of the exam and consider a new approach. The lower courts agreed because it was pretty obvious law and Congress was quite explicit in its intentions. The Supreme Court took a rather activist approach and overturned Congress' intent and rewrote the law themselves. A bit harshly, in my opinion, but I definitely think it is an area of law that needs to be revisited anyway, so hopefully Congress will use this as a kick in the ass to do so. Judah On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 6:29 PM, Jerry Barnes<[email protected]> wrote: > > "I was not ignoring it, it is just statistically unlikely." > > "Lets say that half of them are white and half are non-white. 10 of the 20 > pass the test, but 8 of the 10 who pass are white versus 2 of the 10 who are > non-white. Statistically, that is a very unlikely scenario . . ." > > > I'll have to disagree since 118 applicants took the test and only 27 were > black (23% of the testers while 37.4% of the city is black). Fifty-nine > firefighters passed the test. Only the top sixteen were eligible for > promotion, 3 of which were latino's. Some blacks did pass the test, just > not in the top sixteen. > > Also, consider the factor of work force. The pool of potential blacks who > could score high on the test is not as large as the pool of white workers > since blacks are a minority. Many who could do well are in other more > lucrative fields. By the way, this is not my argument. I heard a black > football coach discussing why there are so few black head football coaches > in college football. He said that most of the good, young black coaches are > snatched up by the NFL. > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:299423 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
