Justice Department Claims Virginia Beach Police Math Exam Discriminates Against Blacks, Hispanics

wavy.com ^ | 02/09/2006 | ap

[GOPgirl_VA]

A U.S. Justice Department investigation into hiring practices at the Virginia Beach Police Department has concluded that a math exam given to recruits discriminates against blacks and Hispanics.

The math test is one of a handful of separately times and scored components of the National Police Officer Selection Test used to screen and select entry-level officers. The investigation found that between 2002 and 2005, about 85 percent of white applicants passed the math test, while 66 percent of Hispanic applicants and 59 percent of blacks passed.

Virginia Beach demands that applicants score at least 70 percent to pass, which adversely affects blacks and Hispanics, the justice department said in a letter to the city.

"The evidence establishes that Virginia Beach is engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African Americans and Hispanics on the basis of their race and national origin with respect to entry-level police officer positions in its Police Department..." the justice department wrote.

The DOJ told the city it can enter into a consent decree by taking appropriate measures to end the discrimination and providing "sufficient remedial relief" to the applicants who suffered the discrimination.

The city has until March 7 to make the corrective measures or the DOJ will file a complaint, it warned in the letter signed by David J. Palmer, chief of the employment litigation section for the department.

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, the city said it didn't agree that any discrimination had occurred, but that it would work with the DOJ to examine the math test.

[flair2000]

I saw the sample question there on WAVY this morning and I was stunned. Stunned but not suprised. The same kind of crap happened at my workplace. We had a basic entrance exam that was labeled as "discriminatory" and had to be changed. A few years later, the test was completely scrapped, and management is going on interviews only. We have no idea what kind of people we are getting now.

[flair2000]

There are very few Blacks and Hispanics that live in VA. Beach. The one's that are complaining are probably from Norfolk or elsewhere.

What is your definition of very few blacks? I lived there 15 years up until last June and live just across the NC border now, and I never got that impression. Va Beach has 85,593 black people in a population of 424,257 (as of 2000 census). A large chunk of the western half of Va Beach is black (College Park/Level Green and Newtown/Baker/Diamond Springs are mostly black areas).

[peyton randolph]

He even gets to read it out loud in class!

If pub school, I predict sensitivity training. Be fun to hear the project and watch the expressions on the teacher's face though.

[Revolting cat!]

2 + 2 = 4, no matter what your skin color or language.

Uh, uh. In Mexican 2 would be dos, and 4 quatro, in ebonics: too en too be fo, mofo!

[Reactionary]

"The only thing I can figure is that it discriminates between those that can do math and those that can't."

Well, when one presupposes that all human beings are exactly alike, I guess it follows that even abstract reasoning can be racist.

This socialist nonsense has no place in a free society.

[TChris]

Math does NOT discriminate. Either an answer is right or it's wrong.

How mean-spirited and unfeeling of you! Life isn't just about right and wrong. It's about how you feel! The important thing in math is how you feel about the answer.

If blacks and hispanics are failing the math test more than whites, it must be racial discrimination, because that's what it feels like!

</sarcasm>

[jblair]

One problem that pop culture brings to all persons is the danger of arrested development. Popcult, in my multi-culti context, describes the role models and influences absorbed by all persons at impressionable ages.

Lifestyles and activities that lead to disinterest or disdain toward learning eat up kids of all stripes. I can't imagine these exams for any form of civil service rise above elementary mathematics. The likelihood that any one racial/ethnic group in the world is naturally incapable of performing basic math is hard for me to fathom. However, cultural sensibilities, or lack thereof, can certainly result in functional illiteracy, etc.

Different people have different strengths. In this case, different values produce different results. The discrimination that occurred here is discrimination against the value of learning.

That said, I still like jokes about tacos, crack pipes, and rednecks.

[Coldwater Creek]

Well, Va, Beach looks really vanilla compared to the Memphis area where I live. Maybe the area's are more segregated there and I just did not see them in the 13 years that we visited there.

[petitfour]

Here are some sample questions from the test.

http://www.wvec.com/news/vbtests.pdf

[flair2000]

Interesting to note how the instructions stress that there is no cumulative score kept. Either you get over 70% or not. If you ace the thing it has no more bearing that if you squeaked by with a 70. That should have made everyone happy, but apparently not. My son is in sixth grade, and his math problems are tougher than the ones on that test.

[Dahoser]

I thought we got rid of disparate impact when Ed Meese ran the Justice Department. It is one of the biggest canards in the racial discrimination game.