No Promotions Until Everyone Qualifies

Call it affirmative action. Call it a spoils system. Call it reparations. Call it justice. Whatever you call it, our system for building a racially equal society through set asides and court ordered equality has hit a wall and is yielding increasingly absurd results: Justices to Hear White Firefighters’ Bias Claims

The last time the city offered a promotional exam, he said in a sworn statement, he gave up a second job and studied up to 13 hours a day. Mr. Ricci, who is dyslexic, paid an acquaintance more than $1,000 to read textbooks onto audiotapes. He made flashcards, took practice tests, worked with a study group and participated in mock interviews.

Mr. Ricci did well, he said, coming in sixth among the 77 candidates who took the exam. But the city threw out the test, because none of the 19 African-American firefighters who took it qualified for promotion. That decision prompted Mr. Ricci and 17 other white firefighters, including one Hispanic, to sue the city, alleging racial discrimination

I guess the post-9/11 idea that firefighters are America's Heroes is no longer operative. Now they are back to being racist louts who can't be trusted with deciding who should be promoted from their ranks. The rationale from the reparations crowd is almost a parody of racist feel-good blather:

Donald Day, a representative of the International Association of Black Professional Fire Fighters, questioned the value of the New Haven test, which included written and oral components. “An individual’s ability to answer a multiple-choice exam,” Mr. Day told the city’s Civil Service Board, “does nothing but measure their ability to read and retain.”

There are more important values, he added. “Young black and Latino kids have every right,” he said, “to see black and Latino officers on those fire trucks that are riding through their community. They have every right to look for a role model.”

The fact that someone is a fireman is supposed to be the "role model," you idget. 

Through actions like this, the Left continues its relentless assault on America's productive class; telling it that it cannot seek promotion or advancement until everyone "qualifies," an absurdly high standard. How can you promote people if the failures of the unpromotable creates a civil rights claim? The whole point of promotions is to allow exceptional people - leaders, if you will - to advance into positions of responsibility.

The linked article says there have been no promotions in New Haven since 2003. The fire fighter hierarchy has been frozen in place for the sake of hurt feelings. God forbid, the firefighters who failed the exam do what others apparently did: worked hard, studied, and earned a passing grade.