As someone else put it - meritocracy becomes mediocrity. Beyond the general outrage of this judicial edict, what this means is that the smaller portion of black firefighters that actually passed the test, let alone a few that probably aced it, can rationally he presumed by the public upon sight as only being in their position because of their color. Then the new applicants that score high on the test will be presumed to be no better than their brethern that failed the test.
This isn’t surprising at all. The federalized first responder union that they have been trying to push for 3.5 years was intended to accomplish the same thing, no test based promotions. It was actually intended to do more than just that.
The idea was to take away local control of all first responder jobs, often forcing rural areas and small towns to contract with cities for their services and pay dearly for the privilege, subsidizing the cost of the urban police, fire districts and paramedics, gold plated benefits.
On top of all that, the Obama administration wants to make 11th and 12th grades optional, putting the disinterested students and gang bangers directly into union apprenticeships (without any testing). Then, making promotions seniority based only, would place the former gang bangers ahead of the students who graduate from h.s. or even go onto take a two year course in criminology or emergency medicine. Of course, these young apprentices from the urban ghettos could be sent to any rural police dept if they get the single federalized union through.
Health care is another field that is ripe for the union apprenticeships.