The Test of Discrimination

An article on CNN.com is about a discrimination case that may be coming to the Supreme Court. The thing that is different about this discrimination case is that it is the white males who claim to be discriminated against. The article, High court asked to untangle reverse discrimination case says that there was a test given to firefighters to see how much they knew and if they did well on it they were supposed to get a promotion. After the test was given and scores calculated, they found that a larger number of white firefighters did well, while very few black firefighters did well. So instead of promoting the people who did well on the test, they decided that they should throw out the tests for fear of being sued. They claimed that since too few minorities did well, that they would not promote them because it could be seen as not promoting diversity, even though there was one Hispanic firefighter that did well too.

So, of course, those who did well and were scheduled to get a promotion were not happy with the decision, so they went to court. So far, the courts have had mixed feelings about the situation. The real question is how far is too far when dealing with affirmative action? I think this was way over the line. What if they did not do well on the test because they did not study for it? And what about those couple of white firemen who studied really hard to do well on that test, and then just to have it thrown out because your coworkers did not do as well as you? They should have looked into why there was such a race gap with the test, instead of deciding to throw it out completely. The clear fact is that those firefighters were not promoted simply because they are white, or put better, not black, and that is just as bad as if the sides were switched. This case will go to the courts, and as most court cases are, the ruling is not just for this particular instance, the whole system of affirmative action is going to be put on trial. This is good. We need the dialogue, because, as bad as discrimination is, reverse discrimination is worse because it so often gets brushed aside.