Why the Vulcan Society’s Stance Against the City of NY and the FDNY is Wrong

It IS indeed frustrating to many people that higher standards have been equated to "discrimination" by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the FDNY Vulcan Society leadership AND federal judge Nicholas Garaufis, BUT that too often seems to be the rationale when the outcomes don't look the way some judges or politicians think they "should" look.

Even worse, in this case, are the outright lies being peddled about both the City of New York and the FDNY. Far from there any bigotry AGAINST non-Latino black New Yorkers within New York City's Municipal workforce, that group is the ONLY ethnic group in the city that is OVER-represented by MORE than 10% of their numbers in the general population!

Non-Latino blacks are 23% of New York City's population and 36% of the city's workforce. The only other group that's at all over-represented is non-Latino whites, who at 35% of the population are 38% of the city's workforce. Hispanics (28% of the population) are under-represented (18%) and Asians (12%) are the MOST under-represented (6%).

SEE: http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4038/the-whitest-city-agencies

Perhaps, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Garaufis’ decision that a court-appointed auditor will examine the recruitment, testing and hiring of entry-level firefighters for at least 10 years SHOULD BE expanded to New York City’s ENTIRE workforce as no New York City agency “LOOKS anything LIKE NYC” and with Asians and Hispanics so greatly UNDER-represented with one group (non-Latino black new Yorkers) so OVER-represented, some intervention to make the city’s entire workforce better “mirror New York” SHOULD BE supported by those who’ve fought for that position vis-à-vis the FDNY.

Indeed, if NYC's workforce "should look like NYC," then a lot of non-Latino black workers will have to make way for far more Asians and Hispanic workers!

Merit Matters has never supported that kind of "proportionalism" because we believe that people tend to gravitate to jobs they have an interest in and WANT to do....AND all jobs should have some basic standards/requirements, BUT if that is the standard to be imposed, then it MUST be imposed across-the-board. For this judge (Nicholas Garaufis) to claim "reading comprehension isn't important to firefighting" is absolutely absurd because virtually every aspect of firefighting today requires a serious commitment to reading and continued education.

With these recent FDNY entrance "exams" calibrated to Grammar School reading levels (7th and 8th grade levels), it SHOULD BE an insult to all African-Americans that some (like the Vulcan leadership and the CCR) are claiming that such standards "discriminate against blacks."

That SHOULD BE an outrage!

It's sad that it isn't.

JMK

A GREAT article by Hannington Dia.....

Author Hannington Dia has written a GREAT article titled, "The Myth That is the Racist FDNY Exam."

In it, Mr. Dia notes, "I wasn't able to view the proceedings, but Mr. Ramsay and I struck up a conversation with a firefighter outside the courthouse. The young man, who happened to be black, told us he didn't support the "biased" notion. He then shared that he'd received a 100 on the exam and he wanted the lawsuit settled so he could return to work."

But when he approached Vulcan Society President John Coombs for his response to this recruits view, he reports that Mr. Coombs replied, "A couple stupid Negroes pass the exam and think the process is not flawed," and that Mr. Coombs then reportedly added, "That exam is bad. It doesn't matter how many blacks, Asians, minorities pass it. Why do we have the exam when it has been proven to not show who would be a better firefighter?"

Mr. Dia seemed to find that response perplexing, "Well, according to the results of the 2002 exam, 85 percent of black recruits passed that year. Five years later, that number jumped to 93%. So more than just "a couple of stupid Negroes" have managed to make the cut in recent years. And it doesn't matter how many blacks are passing? Isn't this what the whole controversy is about?"


Indeed it IS, Mr. Dia, indeed it is.


Read the entire article here:

http://ournewsnow.com/opinion/1852/The-Myth-That-Is-The-Racist-FDNY-Exam

The Concept of “Diversity as Value” is Being Challenged in the Courts!

When the NY Times boldly announces, “College Diversity Nears its Last Stand,” you know things have reached critical mass on that issue.

Fisher V University of Texas may upend the concept of “ethnic/racial diversity as intrinsic value.” Abigail Fisher, a white student, claims that she was denied admission to the University of Texas simply because of her race.

Her case is now hurtling toward the Supreme Court where observers say that at least five votes support the view that “ethnic diversity, in and of itself, has no intrinsic or innate value.”

Of course Justices, Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts stand squarely against that principle, while swing Justice Anthony Kennedy hasn't been as reliably ideological and as court observers have noted, though he has sometimes served as a brake on the ambitions of his more conservative colleagues in cases concerning race, he has never, according to Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Irvine, voted to uphold an affirmative action program.

The 2003 Supreme Court decision being challenged by the Fisher case is Grutter v. Bollinger, which has elevated the concept of “diversity” to an ironclad constitutional stature. Grutter authorized admissions officials to admit a “critical mass” of minority students.

According to Adam Liptak (the NY Times’ Supreme Court correspondent), “Diversity is the last man standing, the sole remaining legal justification for racial preferences in deciding who can study at public universities. Should the Supreme Court disavow it, the student body at the University of Texas and many other public colleges and universities would almost instantly become whiter and more Asian, and less black and Hispanic.”

However, “diversity” is NOT actually “the last man standing” on the side of preferences/quotas and set-asides, as the thorny concept of “disparate impact” has yet to be effectively dealt with.

Although, without question, should “diversity as value” fall, then the even more problematic and often-abused “disparate impact,” is clearly in trouble.

SEE: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/sunday-review/college-diversity-nears-its-last-stand.html

JMK

The Vulcan Society & the Center for Constitutional Rights Positions Raise More Questions, With Few Answers

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Should we look to support race-blind merit-based Civil Service exams for public safety jobs with the city, or should we take whatever warm bodies we can get so long as they meet a preferred racial quota or political goal?

Should we expect all people to be judged equally as individuals or should we judge people based on assignment to a subjective racial category?

Is it the mission of the FDNY to correct any and all perceived social ills? Is that sound public policy? Should the city not seek the most intelligent and most physically capable people available to fill the appointments to its fire academy?

Were Civil Service exams not created to eliminate the patronage and favoritism we now see politicians and judges preferring upon the Vulcan Society?

A number of very serious questions arise out of the positions of those supporting preferences.

* What evidence does Mr. Coombs have that the exams favor “volunteer” firemen?

* What percentage of FDNY firemen were volunteers prior to getting appointed?

It is well known that for decades, due to protestations of the Vulcan Society, the firefighter’s entrance exams have been prohibited from containing any firematic related questions. So, this appears to be simply a myth the Vulcan Society claims publically without any substantiation.

Moreover, the written exams are devised to test relevant skill sets (like reading comprehension, judgment skills, etc.) but do not require any prerequisite knowledge AND the most recent exams (ones with these objectionable “disparate impacts”) have been calibrated to Grammar School reading levels (7^th & 8^th grade reading levels) to be precise.

How can that be a “discriminatory” testing mechanism for a job that ostensibly requires a 12^th grade reading level via it’s required HS Diploma?

Furthermore Mr. Coombs has publically stated they can’t point to one single racist question or one that requires firematic knowledge. The entire case against these FDNY Entrance exams rests on the legal concept of “disparate impact” - nothing more, nothing less.

* Why would the Department of Corrections be an example of something to model on agency after?

Both the FDNY and the DOC exams are written by DCAS and both hire using rank order Civil Service Merit and Fitness exams based on Objective criteria.

Furthermore the Dept of Corrections racial makeup is evidence that DCAS hiring is based on who demonstrates they are most qualified for the job not who has what skin color. The FDNY at most (by excluding Civilians and EMS personnel) has a ratio of 2 white firefighters for every white in NYC's general population. That’s 2:1 Ratio.

The Dept. of Corrections is over 65% black! That is 2.5 times the number of blacks that are found in the general population, or in other words a 2.5:1 ratio of blacks to their overall numbers in NYC.

* Is this an example of “racism” too, and how are DCAS exams structured to favor whites in the FDNY but also written to favor blacks in Corrections?

* Why is a greater disproportionate representation of blacks a laudable goal but a lesser disproportionate representation of “whites” is presumed to be racism? Isn’t counting/discriminating against any individual based on the color of their skin, regardless of which color STILL “discrimination?!

In FACT, New York’s workforce IS disproportionately non-Latino black! That group (non-Latino blacks) is the ONLY ethnic group in the city that is OVER-represented by MORE than 10% their numbers in the general population! Non-Latino blacks are 23% of the city's population and 35% of the city's workforce. The only other group that's at all over-represented is non-Latino whites, who at 36% of the population are 38% of the city's workforce. Hispanics are under-represented and Asians are the MOST under-represented.

SEE: http://www.citylimits.org/multimedia/257/new-york-city-s-agencies-by-race-ethnic-breakdown

AND: http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4038/the-whitest-city-agencies

So, if NYC's workforce "should look like NYC," as both the Vulcan Society leadership and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) insist, then a lot of non-Latino black workers will have to be let go to make way for more Asians and Hispanics! We don't support that kind of "proportionalism" because people tend to gravitate to jobs they have an interest in and WANT to do....AND all jobs should have some basic standards/requirements.

To hold to his stated positions Mr. Coombs (the Vulcan Society President) is either confused or has an agenda to benefit him and his constituency.

The FDNY and DOC racial profiles can either be both racist or both are innocuous. Their similarity as it pertains to racism is mutually exclusive...they cannot be different at the same time.

In regards to the positions, reasoning and logic reported by both the CCR and the Vulcan Society...there is something obviously wrong with their pressing for a greater percentage of workers from the most OVER-represented group on New York City’s workforce. You’d think that in this day and age, people would reject such outright racial bigotry and simply conclude that Civil Service SHOULD provide Equal Opportunity (the opportunity to take the same rigorous exams and be judged on the same standards) but not equal outcomes.

Kevin Thomas

FDNY

Merit Matters PRESS RELEASE - October 12, 2011 More on the FDNY Ruling

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In our Press Release dated October 9, 2011 we ended by stating that there is much more in Judge Nicholas Garaufis’ October 5 Order that required comment. This Release contains those comments.

On page 2 the point is made that the City’s other uniformed agencies, and fire departments around the country, have changed to reflect the communities they serve so therefore the FDNY must also. What is left out is that there are numerous city agencies that are more racially out of balance than the FDNY, ironically including the Equal Employment Practices Commission where 63% of the employees are black; this is 2.3x the black population of NYC. For comparison, whites are employed by the FDNY at a rate of 1.67x their city population. If we look at only the firefighting ranks, whites are 2x their population numbers - still less than the EEPC numbers. The most out of balance agency is the Department of Juvenile Justice - 78% black, which means they are employed at a rate almost 3x the population.

In fact, among all city employees blacks are the most overrepresented group. If eyes are beginning to glaze over reading these facts, consider that the racial makeup of the FDNY is the core argument being made so these facts are important and more can be learned on our website in an April 10, 2011 post.

As to fire departments in other cities, those most often cited achieved the percentages desired because of quotas. If Judge Garaufis denies he wants to utilize quotas in the FDNY he should stop pointing to these cities as examples we should follow. He should also stay away from requiring “a range of alternative firefighter hiring processes” (discussed on page 27) as people are no longer fooled by euphemisms and obfuscation; they know a quota is a quota is a quota. It is laudable that the judge orders that “(t)he City of New York shall not discriminate on the basis of race against black or Hispanic firefighter candidates”; he must realize that it is not acceptable or legal to discriminate against other groups on this basis either.

What of female firefighters? If the FDNY were to reflect the community it serves more than half the job would have to be female. The Vulcan Society has argued that the physical test taken by candidates should be marked on a competitive basis, which is contrary to the position taken by the FDNY female firefighters’ group (who want it marked on a pass/fail basis to give females an advantage). Does this make the Vulcan Society sexist?

Should the number of public school teachers in NYC - currently about 85% female - reflect the population? I am sure Mayor Bloomberg has considered the numerous disparate impact lawsuits that will no doubt be filed regarding every city agency that is out of balance on either a racial or gender basis and this is part of why he is so adamantly stating that this judge’s ruling will be appealed.

In what will no doubt come as a surprise, Merit Matters agrees with the judge that the FDNY EEO Office is in dire need of an overhaul. I was told a few years ago by its current head that no action is taken against individuals who make false complaints because they wanted to avoid a “chilling effect” regarding EEO complaints. I responded to this astounding statement that I would think a chilling effect regarding false complaints that threaten a person’s career would be desirable - but I was wrong. We are currently in the midst of demanding a reopening of the investigation into one of the complaints discussed in the August hearings as there are many questions about the assignment of motives, standards of evidence, whether other agencies and offices declined to move ahead based on the information provided and false statements given under oath. Perhaps our demand will usher in a new era of fairness.

Reaction to Judge Garaufis’ finding in January of 2010 that the City of New York intentionally discriminated against minority candidates was rather genteel - phrases like “unexpected”, “deeply perplexing” and “rare” were used. The reaction to his latest Order perhaps reflects that people have gotten to know him a little better. Various publications this week have used the phrases “loony”, “off the wall”, “taken leave of his senses”, “far off the dial” and “way out of line”. About the nicest reaction opined that he “showed less than judicial temperament”. I have witnessed his temperament in the courtroom as he screamed at a city attorney to sit down not once but three times (when I told this story to regular court observers they indicated that he did that all the time) as well as when he had to call a recess and leave the court to gather himself because the same city attorney had the temerity to object when a witness that the judge obviously empathized with was testifying. I don’t know if Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had Nicholas Garaufis in mind when he recently remarked that, “Federal judges ain’t what they used to be” but perhaps Justice Scalia will one day soon get to weigh in on this case of his.


Paul Mannix
President, Merit Matters
516-848-9847 cell

Thomas Sowell on "REVERSE DISCRIMINATION"

A GREAT article by Thomas Sowell;

Reverse Racism Commentary

Thomas Sowell

http://www.gopusa.com/commentary/2011/10/11/sowell-reverse-racism/?subscriber=1

Among those who have been disappointed by President Barack Obama, none is likely to end up so painfully disappointed as those who saw his election as being, in itself and in its consequences, a movement toward a "post-racial society."

Like so many other expectations that so many people projected onto this little-known man who suddenly burst onto the political scene, the expectation of movement toward a post-racial society had no speck of hard evidence behind it -- and all too many ignored indications of the very opposite, including his two decades of association with the egregious Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

Those people of good will who want to replace the racism of the past with a post-racial society have too often overlooked the fact that there are others who instead want to put racism under new management, to have reverse discrimination as racial payback for past injustices.

Attorney General Eric Holder became a key figure epitomizing the view that government's role in racial matters was not to be an impartial dispenser of equal justice for all, but to be a racial partisan and an organ of racial payback. He has been too politically savvy to say that in so many words, but his actions have spoken far louder than any words.

The case that first gave the general public a glimpse of Attorney General Holder's views and values was one in which young black thugs outside a voting site in Philadelphia were televised intimidating white voters. When this episode was broadcast, it produced public outrage.

Although the Department of Justice's prosecution of these thugs began in the last days of the Bush administration, and the defendants had offered no legal defense, the case was dropped by the Justice Department after Eric Holder took over. One of the lawyers who were prosecuting that case resigned in protest.

That lawyer - J. Christian Adams - has now written a book, titled "Injustice: Exposing the Racial Agenda of the Obama Justice Department." It is a thought-provoking book and a shocking book in what it reveals about the inner workings of the Department of Justice's civil rights division.

Bad as the Justice Department's decision was to drop that particular case, which it had already won in court, this book makes painfully clear that this was just the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Despite the efforts of some in the media and in politics to depict the voter intimidation in Philadelphia as just an isolated incident involving a few thugs at one voting place, former U.S. Attorney Adams shows that these thugs were in fact part of a nationwide organization doing similar things elsewhere.

Moreover, the civil rights division of the Justice Department has turned the same blind eye to similar voter intimidation and corruption of the voting process by other people and other organizations in other cities and states - so long as those being victimized were white and the victimizers were black.

This is all spelled out in detail, naming names and naming places, not only among those in the country at large, but also among those officials of the Justice Department who turned its role of protecting the civil rights of all Americans into a policy of racial partisanship and racial payback.

The widespread, organized and systematic corruption of the voting process revealed by the author of "Injustice" is on a scale that can swing not only local but national elections, including the 2012 elections. The Department of Justice under Attorney General Eric Holder has not only turned a blind eye to blatant evidence of voter fraud, it has actively suppressed those U.S. Attorneys in its own ranks who have tried to stop that fraud.

Even in counties where the number of votes cast exceeds the number of people legally entitled to vote, Eric Holder's Justice Department sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil - if the end result is the election of black Democrats. It has become the mirror image of the old Jim Crow South.

This is an enormously eye-opening book which makes painfully clear that, where racial issues are concerned, the Department of Justice has become the Department of Payback. A post-racial society is the last thing that Holder and Obama are pursuing.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His website is www.tsowell.com.

COPYRIGHT 2011 CREATORS.COM

Also SEE:

http://meritmattersusa.blogspot.com/2011/06/biggovernmentcom-reports-on-racial.html

http://meritmattersusa.blogspot.com/2011/03/daily-caller-calls-out-loretta-king.html

http://meritmattersusa.blogspot.com/2010/04/great-article-that-puts-center-for.html

http://meritmattersusa.blogspot.com/2010/04/great-article-that-puts-center-for.html