By Selwyn Duke

Imagine this scenario: You take an exam to be a police officer but are disqualified because of your grade. 

It was too high.

It sounds ridiculous, but that’s what happened to Robert Jordan, an individual who aspired to be a man in blue.  This particular story is old now (although I know there are other instances of this occurring), but I felt it was still worth a little attention.  Treating this issue, Ananova.com wrote:

A US man has been rejected in his bid to become a police officer for scoring too high on an intelligence test.

Robert
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took an exam to join the New
London police, in Connecticut, in 1996 and scored 33 points, the
equivalent of an IQ of 125.

But New London police interviewed
only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who
scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after
undergoing costly training.

What I found most interesting, however, is how this story illustrates our dislocation from reality with respect to the issue of discrimination.  Mr. Jordan filed a lawsuit against New London, but the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled against him saying that the city did not discriminate against Jordan "because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test."

Wow, what reasoning.  First, "to discriminate" simply means to choose one or some from among many; thus, by definition the city engaged in discrimination.  However, let’s allow that the court was referring to invidious discrimination (the word usually does have a negative connotation today), meaning, the kind that is likely to create ill will.  But then, how does this not qualify?

The most important thing to note, though, is the kind of reasoning that now passes for sober adjudication.  Anytime there’s discrimination you could say that "the same standards were applied to everyone . . . ."  As an example: To get this job, your skin cannot be too dark.

Same standard for everyone.

Here’s another: To get this job, you must have an XY chromosome configuration.

Again, same standard for everyone.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that people usually have a sense of fairness and instinctively sense what kind of discrimination is or isn’t just.  For instance, when people don’t perform well enough on a test to qualify for a position, they accept it as a just, although disappointing, ruling of meritocracy.  But it’s usually a different story when someone is denied a position simply because of his race (but not always; if I were refused a job in a Japanese restaurant because they valued authenticity, I’d understand).  My only point is that fairness has very little to do with to do with our government’s anti-discrimination policies.  For example, deny a married woman a position on a police force based on the idea that she may get pregnant and quit after undergoing costly training, and see how far you get.

The simple truth is that we are not a classless society.  Not according to the government’s actions, anyway.

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