Discrimination
A Federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a man who was barred from the New London police force because he scored too high on an intelligence test.
In a ruling made public on Tuesday, Judge Peter C. Dorsey of the United States District Court in New Haven agreed that the plaintiff, Robert Jordan, was denied an opportunity to interview for a police job because of his high test scores. But he said that that did not mean Mr. Jordan was a victim of discrimination.
Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected.
This one really left me speechless.
June 13th, 2008 at 8:49 am
How the fuck do they justify being “too smart”? I mean I can see if its somebody like a Savant that has an IQ of 280, but forgets to load his gun on duty, or leaves the cruiser in drive durring a traffic stop….or even if they’re like some of the Engeneers I know, REALLY bright, but ZERO people skills or conflict resolution.
But just biased on smarts alone? I have full respect for our Men and Women in blue, and I’m glad we have them…but this just INVITES “Dumb Piggie” jokes….
June 13th, 2008 at 9:25 am
That’s stupid. You want smart cops.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:31 am
the judge is a maroon. the real reason to dismiss the suit would be that high IQ is not a protected category (or whatever the actual legal term is).
sure, the guy was “discriminated” against, but only here in the real world. by law he has no suit, because “we’re not hiring you because we’re all a bunch of cretins and would feel intimidated by a new hire that could think” is not something barred by anti-discrimination laws. what this dude should do is thank his lucky stars he didn’t end up working with such a buncha numbnuts and move on.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:38 am
[quote]
Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who – [b]was black/was gay/was a woman/wasn’t Christian[b] was rejected.
[/quote]
Is that not more or less [b]the[/b] definition of discrimination?
Also, I believe the rationale behind not hiring super-smart people is that they will quickly become bored with mundane nature of typical police work and are much more likely to quit.
June 13th, 2008 at 9:43 am
lol looks like I’ve been posting on forums too much – I’ll use the buttons next time.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Nice to see this classic from 1999 still has legs.
In the lawsuit, the defendant (the city’s police department) takes the position that cops are stupid. The court agreed and the defense prevailed. I suppose the city had a few crack lawyers on there side, plus a colluding judiciary branch.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:24 am
I wonder how this got resurrected. My son sent me an IM about it yesterday or the day before when he read it on an Microsoft internal “gamer” email list. He hadn’t noticed it was from ’99 either.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:28 am
joe, honestly, i forget. it was in an opened firefox tab. forgot where i saw it.
June 13th, 2008 at 11:47 am
too smart to be a cop, not smart enough to miss the requisite number of questions on the test to be a cop….a condundrum.
June 13th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
If it happened in 1999, it explains a lot about the current bunch of cops…
June 13th, 2008 at 6:29 pm
ParatrooperJJ: We want smart cops …
The politicians want cops that won’t question orders. Smart cops don’t meet that criterion.
June 13th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Old news.
After he got out of the service, a High School buddy of mine was rejected due to too high test score. No smart cops allowed. Pacific Northwest, mid to early 80’s.
June 13th, 2008 at 10:54 pm
This is a surprise how?