Did you know that the state of Delaware is being accused of racial bias in the hiring of police officers during the 1990's? That's right, they're being sued for this, because in 1981 they had the nerve to implement a reading exam on which black and white applicant groups scored differently. Delaware discontinued the exam in 1998, presumably under pressure from activist groups who see any indication of group differences as proof of "bias":
The federal government contends the discrimination came through a written literacy test given to trooper applicants and the pass-fail cutoff levels Delaware used to measure results. White applicants regularly outscored black applicants on the test, given to screen admittance into the state police program. The state no longer uses it.
U.S. District Judge Kent A. Jordan ruled in May that the test adversely affected black candidates. That shifted the burden of proof to the state, which now is attempting to show the test was used lawfully with pass-fail cutoff rates that were job-related and measured minimum qualifications in reading and writing.
So, if you use a test on which every applicant group doesn't pass with the exact same rate, the pressure is then on you to prove that the test does indeed measure useful skills and is a minimum-competency exam. I believe that test developers should indeed be prepared to defend their exams in this way, but I believe this is a rotten precedent to set for challenging an exam. The test scores in the public school system show that minority students don't score as highly as white students, presumably because of their rotten schools. Why expect the test scores to be different at this level?
[Lt. Ralph H.] Davis testified that at the academy, where trainees are sent after a screening, future officers learn skills such as how to write paperwork requesting and justifying searches and arrests. The documents can be crucial to furthering an investigation and helping jog an officer's memory years later when it is time to testify.
Under cross-examination, Davis said officers recruited by municipal police organizations also attend the academy and sit side-by-side with state police recruits. They live in the same academy dormitory, do the same course work for the same instructors and take the same academy tests, he said.
Lt. Davis is attempting to justify the exams, presumably by showing that (1) reading skills are necessary in police work and (2) all recruits do the same course work and the same test preparation.
So let's find out more about this test. According to this website, written exams are still required for Delaware State Police, although it doesn't say what kind. Here's another article from earlier this year in which the allegations of bias are explained a little more fully:
Federal attorneys submitted test results from 10 recruit classes in court papers to demonstrate their argument. Percentages of passing black applicants dipped as low as 33 percent in one set of test results while white applicants passed at rates in the 80 percent and 90 percent ranges.
"The difference in passing rates is so extreme that it cannot be attributed to chance," federal attorneys wrote in court papers.
What has that got to do with anything? Why would black and white applicants be expected to differ only by chance? Look at the K-12 test scores, people. If black students don't get the reading skills in high school, why expect them to have them by the time they apply for the police force?
Yet another case of shooting the messenger. These results show that black students who earn diplomas or GEDs - the requirement for the trooper position - aren't being taught to read. So we're going to remove the test just so we can put black cops on the job who may not be able to decipher arrest warrants?
But attorneys for Delaware have attacked the federal argument, calling it "folly" bolstered by "invented facts," according to court papers. The federal statistics, they argue, were based on results for everyone who took the test, whether or not the applicants met minimum qualifications to be troopers.
That could certainly skew the results the way the federal government wants them to be. The use of reading scores of applicants with poor education or prior criminal history (who would have been rejected regardless) to claim test bias is despicable. There's an agenda being pushed here, and it's not one that will lead to a better police force.
The defense cited a different study of test results, which measured the performance of applicants who met job eligibility requirements. That study's results "recognized that blacks were fairly represented, or even slightly overrepresented, in the test-passer pool," according to court documents.
Emphasis mine. So, to recap, black applicants who met all eligibility requirements are fairly represented in those who passed the exams - but because blacks are over-represented in the failing group, and an unknown number of them would not have qualified to be a police officer on other grounds, that's evidence that the test is biased.
Give me a break.
(Thanks to Daryl for the tip.)
Posted by kswygert at August 20, 2003 09:55 AM