Free Republic

Public safety is non-negotiable. That’s the message signaled Tuesday by lawyers defending the Big Apple's fire department from race-based bullying by the U.S. Justice Department. Justice is trying to make the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) hire more minorities even though FDNY has taken extraordinary steps to recruit in black and Hispanic communities. The Obama administration, still unsatisfied, ramped up the pressure by demanding admissions quotas for interim hires and extremely low standards on fire-academy entrance exams. Bowing to Obama wishes, U.S. District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis created a complicated, multistep process to ram through more minority admissions, effectively...