New Hampshire Firefighters
June 29th, 2009 | Published in Politics
One of the big stories today has been the Supreme Court’s decision about discriminatory practices for firefighter promotions in New Hampshire. As far as I can gather, the town in question gives a set of tests to determine which firefighters to promote. When the city looked at the test results, “not enough” minorities had scored a promotion so they threw out the tests completely and denied 19 whites and 1 hispanic their promotions. The city in question said that it through out the tests for fear of the minorities in the department suing over discrimination.
There are a number of things that I don’t know about in this case. First, I assume that the tests cover things that a firefighter needs to know and needs to be proficient in to lead others and to do his job well. Second, given #1, I cannot see how any type of racial bias could be in the tests; you are either a good leader and firefighter or you are not.
Seems like the best thing to do would have been to give the promotions based on the requirements that had been set out. Then, if needed, take a look at the tests procedures and content to make sure they dealt only with things needed by a leader and firefighter for promotion.
Overall, I am happy to see that the court ruled as it did. It is scary though that this, like the “DC Gun Case” (District of Columbia v. Heller) last year, this case was decided by only a 5-4 decision. These next few months will be very interesting as Obama’s nominees for the Supreme Court are confirmed.