“The failing applicants argued that the exams tested skills unrelated to the job and thus constituted illegal racial or gender discrimination.”
The New York City Fire Department has a difficult time recruiting candidates. They even go so far as to claim that firefighters don’t run into burning buildings. The drive for more diversity hires leads to a soft peddling of what firefighting actually entails, and recruiters end up dissembling to potential hires. And it means that the new minority hires increasingly can’t meet the strict standards.
It strains credulity to believe that firefighters who routinely fail the knowledge and physical fitness tests will suddenly perform under the stressful, life-or-death decisions needed at a burning building, but that is what liberals would have us believe.
The civil service exam and physical fitness test for firefighters have always been extremely competitive. The failing applicants argued that the exams tested skills unrelated to the job and thus constituted illegal racial or gender discrimination. Moreover, the high number of black and minority candidates who failed created a disparate, unfair, and racist test.
So just like the literacy test for teachers, instead of maintaining high standards that will save lives, the fire department was forced to reduce standards and was ordered to hire a certain number of minority candidates. It got so ridiculous that the courts even ruled that speed and physical strength are not applicable to firefighting.
One female recruit was hired even though she was given six chances to run 1.5 miles in 12 minutes. That is six laps around a track, and somebody on a slow and steady jog can complete it in 12 minutes. Yet this person is supposed to carry equipment into a burning building and potentially carry full-grown men from buildings. Americans just saw in Houston the kind of physical strain that rescue operations entail, yet the quest for diversity demands that somebody who can’t maintain a steady jog for 12 minutes gets the job.
The kind of courage required to run into a burning building is exemplary, yet the department has taken to hiring felons to fill quotas. The last class included at least nine former felons and those with potential ties to gangs. While it’s true that good people make mistakes and that it’s possible to change and overcome one’s past, I doubt that the stressful life-or-death situations of firefighters rushing into billowing smoke and white hot flames will inspire the character that was lacking in less stressful situations.
By itself, more diversity is a great goal. The hiring process should be open to a wide variety of candidates regardless of color, creed, or socioeconomic status. But the quest for diversity shouldn’t undermine standards. And it shouldn’t be an obsessive goal that seeks diversity just for diversity. Few people demand diversity in professional sports, for example, because they know it will harm the product. Yet in even more important matters of life or death in a fire, or in the education of our children, the fixation on diversity produces less qualified professionals.
