Although this case occurred around the turn of the millennium, I just found out about the Appeals Court in New York who upheld a lower court’s decision that barring intelligent people from the police force is perfectly acceptable. According to the courts, “the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the testA1.” The judge may have thought to himself “Hey, I’ve been functioning as an effective judge in New York for many years and nobody has ever noticed that I’m as dumb as snot. If I can do it, any police officer can do it.” I would have thought his decision in this case would in itself have proven him wrong. Following his logic, it would also be perfectly reasonable to exclude blacks or women from the force as long as you checked the racial and/or sexual identity of every applicant (apparently, it’s only if you forget to ask that you can get in trouble here). Contrary to what the judge seems to believe, the definition of discriminationD says
. . . making a distinction . . . against . . . a person . . . based on the group . . . to which that person . . . belongs rather than on individual merit.
In this case the group would be “intelligent people”. It stands to reason that to effectively discriminate, one has to be able to tell whether the applicant belongs to said group, which implies that all applicants would be measured by some uniform standard. Not only IS this discrimination, but it’s a very bad idea. Two recent news items should make this clear.
Police Officers Should Be Smarter Than Criminals
The first article is about a prison debate team defeating an elite team from HarvardA.
Police Should Be Smart Enough To Know Who Is The Bad Guy
Another concern is the behavior of the police, themselves. This court decision would seem to explain a lot of police behavior in the last few years. I’ve been scratching my head ever since the Trayvon Martin case was decided in Florida (OK, so that was only a police wannabee), but have been unable to comment on every ridiculous case that has made the news of late. I will take a little time to address the most recent case to come to my attention – that of the teenage WHITE boy who was killed by a police officer for flashing his high-beam headlights at him one nightA. This whole incident was a simple misunderstanding that any police officer with half of a brain would have resolved peacefully. The boy’s high crime against the state was in believing that the police held themselves to a higher standard than your everyday thug. He couldn’t imagine that a genuine police officer would take offense to a simple act of courtesy. That was a fatal mistake. At time 1:03 on the tape, he questions if this is a real police officer. This is not a trivial concern. Go ahead and Google something about being stopped by fake police; there are lots of horror stories and several articles explaining what to do should that happen to you. This officer should know about these rules and be aware of the driver’s concerns, yet he did nothing during the entire encounter to distinguish himself from a fake cop or a common criminal. He is clearly not here to listen and work with his constituents – it seems that he is only on the force to get his thrills by bending everybody he meets to his own will and to feed his bloated ego. That’s how it looks to me. If you are stopped by a possibly fake cop, WikiHowA (and others) say to ask for identification. See how well that went at time 1:26. At any point in the video you could ask yourself “What would a fake cop do right now” and compare that to the actions of this police officer. At the same time, point to any action made by the boy in the first five and a half minutes that suggests he was a danger to anyone. By the time he was tased, he had good reason to fear for his life. And even in those last ten seconds of desperation and utter terror, for the officer to think that the unarmed kid on the way home from church had transformed into a genuine killer, or for the prosecutor to say that the officer had no choice but to murder this boy is outrageous. The kid didn’t suddenly turn into a homicidal maniac. He thought he was doomed and was just trying to do whatever it took to stop the torture and get away to live another day. This officer wasn’t about to let that happen. I could argue that the boy’s actions in the end were entirely predictable. If so, and if the officer were taking deliberate action to promote the inevitable as it appears in the tape, then it would be entirely reasonable to charge that officer with first degree murder. If the prosecutor cannot think of at least a dozen more reasonable ways that the officer could have handled this situation, he should be fired. By closing his eyes to justice he is part of the problem, not the solution because by so doing he is destroying his and the department’s credibility and the people’s trust in the whole establishment. They are not protecting and they are not serving. Neither one of them deserves to be paid with your hard-earned tax dollars.
This is just one example of what could and will happen when the intelligence of your police force is not a priority, and when discrimination (of any kind) is allowed to occur. But if I were actually smart, and if I thought I could make a real contribution to society by following a career in law enforcement, I would not let the decision of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in this case dissuade me from that goal. I like to believe that the only reason this decision hasn’t been overturned is because the original plaintiff lost hope in the system and moved on. Even after the Hobby Lobby decisionC, I retained enough faith to believe that “common sense” would eventually prevail – certainly by the time this case got to the Supreme Court.