"Disparate Impact" idiocy leads to could cost NYC taxpayers $1.7 BILLION
I'll bet not one American in a thousand is familiar with the legal rationalization called "disparate impact."
This is not in any way your fault, cuz unless you're an attorney or a political junkie the only way you would have run across this term would be in the Lying Mainstream Media. And the LMM has no interest whatsoever in warning you about how damaging this theory is to our nation--because it's a tool being used by liberals and Democrats to destroy our society, and the LMM doesn't want to hurt Democrats.
This utterly insane theory says that if any test or regulation or government policy or law produces different results with different groups, groups that do worse on the test, or break a particular law more often, can sue. And if the court finds that there is indeed a difference in results--a "disparate impact"--that group will be awarded damages even if the disparate impact was unintentional.
Almost no one gets why this is bad until you see some examples.
In Griggs v. Duke Power a Democrat-controlled Supreme Court ruled that employers couldn't require job applicants to have at least a minimum IQ, as determined by their score on an IQ test.
You think that's satire, but unfortunately it's true.
The court's ruling noted that most minorities (except Asians, hmmm....) score lower on IQ tests. Bingo: "disparate impact." Essentially, the court ruled that any test that has a "disparate impact" on different groups as racist, and thus must be barred. Think about that for a minute.
Not only that, but the court ruled that if any group can show any difference in outcome from ANYTHING, that impacts them unfavorably, the court will bar whatever it was, AND will allow the "disfavored" group to bring a class-action lawsuit for "damages," with no limit to recovery.
The court didn't use those words, but that's the effect.
Many of you still don't see the insanity yet. Suppose you're a utility company looking for entry-level technicians for your nuclear powerplant. I think most sane Americans would agree that being reasonably intelligent is a good think for employees who could eventually control one of those, eh? But according to the idiot judges, the utility company can't have applicants tested for IQ.
Four years ago a court forced NYC taxpayers to pay $98 million to blacks applying to be NYC firefighters, because the plaintiffs showed that blacks scored lower on a screening test used by the department that asked really basic questions about fires and firefighting. Stuff we all learned in junior high.
But that’s nothing: The same courts may now force NYC to pay $1.7 Billion to people applying for a "teaching certificate," because white applicants scored better on a screening test than blacks. So according to the "disparate impact" test, any difference in scores means the screening test discriminated against blacks! So not only do the courts demand the test be thrown out, but every black applicant who failed the certification test is entitled to a share of up to $1.7 Billion in damages!
In New York a court-appointed "special master" has recommended paying a total of $91.6 million in damages to just 219 of the plaintiffs in a class-action suit against the [New York City] Department of Education over a certification exam.
About 4,000 minority applicants failed the test, so if the "special master" uses the same calculations for all failed applicants, the total award to all members of the class would be around $1.67 billion.
The teachers’ case involves the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, a state-mandated exam that city educators and job applicants were required to take from 1993 to 2004. Aboout 90 percent of white test-takers passed, but only about half of black and latino applicants.
According to "disparate impact" this single fact proves the test is racist. The plaintiffs didn't need to introduce ANY evidence other than the difference in test results.
The direct effect of this theory is that if a minority person applying for a position as an airline pilot, or a heart surgeon, and failed the test everyone had to take, but was able to show that their racial group did worse on that test, they would be entitled to a big financial reward.
But we're just getting started: Democrat politicians are arguing that the same "disparate impact" principle must be applied to laws. If more blacks than whites are arrested for violating a law, that law MUST be discriminatory, thus raaacist, and must be repealed.
Rand Paul sought to show the absurdity of this reasoning by noting that since blacks demonstrably commit far more murders and drug crime than whites, all criminal laws against murder and illegal drugs should be repealed.
Most Americans intuitively recognize this as insane. Yet the theory is already being used to force billions in payouts, and the dumbing down of certifications exams for teaching, for air-traffic controller school and heaven knows what else.
And unfortunately, the Supreme Court almost never reverses its own prior decisions--which means we'll be paying the social price for this idiocy for at least another century.
But liberals will get to feel virtuous, poor performers will get more jobs, and Democrat attorneys will make hundreds of millions. And really, isn't that what our society should really value?
This is not in any way your fault, cuz unless you're an attorney or a political junkie the only way you would have run across this term would be in the Lying Mainstream Media. And the LMM has no interest whatsoever in warning you about how damaging this theory is to our nation--because it's a tool being used by liberals and Democrats to destroy our society, and the LMM doesn't want to hurt Democrats.
This utterly insane theory says that if any test or regulation or government policy or law produces different results with different groups, groups that do worse on the test, or break a particular law more often, can sue. And if the court finds that there is indeed a difference in results--a "disparate impact"--that group will be awarded damages even if the disparate impact was unintentional.
Almost no one gets why this is bad until you see some examples.
In Griggs v. Duke Power a Democrat-controlled Supreme Court ruled that employers couldn't require job applicants to have at least a minimum IQ, as determined by their score on an IQ test.
You think that's satire, but unfortunately it's true.
The court's ruling noted that most minorities (except Asians, hmmm....) score lower on IQ tests. Bingo: "disparate impact." Essentially, the court ruled that any test that has a "disparate impact" on different groups as racist, and thus must be barred. Think about that for a minute.
Not only that, but the court ruled that if any group can show any difference in outcome from ANYTHING, that impacts them unfavorably, the court will bar whatever it was, AND will allow the "disfavored" group to bring a class-action lawsuit for "damages," with no limit to recovery.
The court didn't use those words, but that's the effect.
Many of you still don't see the insanity yet. Suppose you're a utility company looking for entry-level technicians for your nuclear powerplant. I think most sane Americans would agree that being reasonably intelligent is a good think for employees who could eventually control one of those, eh? But according to the idiot judges, the utility company can't have applicants tested for IQ.
Four years ago a court forced NYC taxpayers to pay $98 million to blacks applying to be NYC firefighters, because the plaintiffs showed that blacks scored lower on a screening test used by the department that asked really basic questions about fires and firefighting. Stuff we all learned in junior high.
But that’s nothing: The same courts may now force NYC to pay $1.7 Billion to people applying for a "teaching certificate," because white applicants scored better on a screening test than blacks. So according to the "disparate impact" test, any difference in scores means the screening test discriminated against blacks! So not only do the courts demand the test be thrown out, but every black applicant who failed the certification test is entitled to a share of up to $1.7 Billion in damages!
In New York a court-appointed "special master" has recommended paying a total of $91.6 million in damages to just 219 of the plaintiffs in a class-action suit against the [New York City] Department of Education over a certification exam.
About 4,000 minority applicants failed the test, so if the "special master" uses the same calculations for all failed applicants, the total award to all members of the class would be around $1.67 billion.
The teachers’ case involves the Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, a state-mandated exam that city educators and job applicants were required to take from 1993 to 2004. Aboout 90 percent of white test-takers passed, but only about half of black and latino applicants.
According to "disparate impact" this single fact proves the test is racist. The plaintiffs didn't need to introduce ANY evidence other than the difference in test results.
The direct effect of this theory is that if a minority person applying for a position as an airline pilot, or a heart surgeon, and failed the test everyone had to take, but was able to show that their racial group did worse on that test, they would be entitled to a big financial reward.
But we're just getting started: Democrat politicians are arguing that the same "disparate impact" principle must be applied to laws. If more blacks than whites are arrested for violating a law, that law MUST be discriminatory, thus raaacist, and must be repealed.
Rand Paul sought to show the absurdity of this reasoning by noting that since blacks demonstrably commit far more murders and drug crime than whites, all criminal laws against murder and illegal drugs should be repealed.
Most Americans intuitively recognize this as insane. Yet the theory is already being used to force billions in payouts, and the dumbing down of certifications exams for teaching, for air-traffic controller school and heaven knows what else.
And unfortunately, the Supreme Court almost never reverses its own prior decisions--which means we'll be paying the social price for this idiocy for at least another century.
But liberals will get to feel virtuous, poor performers will get more jobs, and Democrat attorneys will make hundreds of millions. And really, isn't that what our society should really value?
posted by SF at
10:52 AM
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