Hoo boy. Our culture of entitlement - and uninformed opposition to testing - is quite apparent in this lawsuit against FedEx:
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- A federal judge has certified a class action lawsuit alleging that FedEx Corp. discriminated against minority workers. The suit was filed in 2003 by eight current and former employees. It seeks millions of dollars in damages and an end to the company's alleged discriminatory practices...The suit contends the delivery service paid thousands of current and former minority employees less than their white counterparts, passed over them for promotions and gave minorities poor work evaluations.
James Finberg, an attorney representing the class, said FedEx normally promotes from within, yet three times the number of package handlers and loaders are minorities compared to drivers, who earn more. Twice the number of minorities fail promotional tests than do whites, Finberg added.
"FedEx knows that black and Hispanics fail at a much higher rate, but yet has not changed the test," Finberg said.
Emphasis mine. The assumption here is that any test which has an achievement gap among ethnic subgroups is biased and therefore discriminatory.
Fed Ex tries to fight back with logic and data, which tells me they're probably going to lose:
In court documents, FedEx contended that promotions were based on "objective" factors, not race, that include time of service, passing a basic skills test, previous performance evaluations and whether the employee has been disciplined.
Tsk, tsk. You mean Fed Ex doesn't look at racial quotas when making hiring decisions? You mean they created objective standards and hold all employees to those standards? They refuse to tweak the standards to ensure a more "diverse" workgroup? How dare they.
Posted by kswygert at September 29, 2005 02:41 PM