Justice...isn't a Multiple Choice Question

A Police Officer should be promoted based on:

1)  The color of his skin
2)  How he performs on a multiple choice test
3)  Job Performance
4)  The color of his skin, if it is not white

Answer Key:
If you chose 1, you are a racist
If you chose 2, you may already have been promoted
If you chose 3, you have never worked for the government

Chief Henry White*

If you chose 4, you must be a lawyer or law maker, congratulations

NJ Settles Police Dept Discrimination Suit

The federal government has reached a settlement with the state of New Jersey in a lawsuit alleging the state discriminated against black and Hispanic police officers.

The Department of Justice argued a written test New Jersey used since 2000 to rank candidates for promotion to the rank of police sergeant disproportionately excluded minority candidates. They also argued the tests weren't necessary to prove the candidates could do the job.The settlement requires the state to pay $1 million into a fund to reimburse those who were harmed. Those officers may also be given priority offers to become sergeants.

“Police officers, whose daily responsibilities include protecting the public and ensuring the safety of others, have the right to be free from discrimination on the basis of race or national origin on the job,” said Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division. “The Department of Justice will challenge discrimination in employment on the basis of race or national origin, whether that discrimination is intentional or the result of promotional practices that have discriminatory impact. The department commends New Jersey for working to put in place new promotion procedures that comply with Title VII and to provide relief to those African-American and Hispanic officers who have been harmed by the prior practices challenged by the department.”

In accordance with this agreement, police departments will still have a multiple choice test to decide who promotes (standard practice across the country), only they will have TWO ranked lists to promote from - one list of 'minority' officers who did not previously do well, and one list of everybody else.  Once the first list is exhausted, they will begin promoting from the second list.

So, it wasn't the multiple choice test.  That was never proved to be, or even explained how it could be, discriminatory.  The ONLY thing that was proved, was that the ratio of white officers' vs minority officers' performance on the test was not equal to some set standard for ratios based on skin color.
There, that makes sense...

*Chief White is probably a great guy, and a good cop, his photo was chosen because his name is White.