Questioning Ricci: Time To Abandon The EEOC’s Four-Fifths Rule

…White New Haven firemen are suing the city for refusing to promote them… because zero blacks passed…the 2003 promotional exams

The last thing Obama wants is for the Supreme Court to issue a landmark, precedent-setting decision in the Ricci case. The public finds the courageous fireman plaintiffs to be sympathetic and the justice of their complaint to be commonsensical. Quotas could easily be scuppered based on this case.

Accordingly, the Administration is calling for the case to be remanded all the way back to a jury trial over whether the city acted with racial malice—i.e., Obama wants Ricci to go away, far away.

In reality, however, Ricci is not an unusual case with particularly complicated facts. It’s just business as usual in American society.

When President Obama graduated from Harvard Law School, he chose, out of hundreds of job offers, to work for a Chicago law firm that specialized in suing over purported discrimination against blacks. For example, as I point out in America’s Half-Blood Prince: Barack Obama’s “Story of Race and Inheritance,” Obama made one of his rare court appearances to accuse Citibank of not giving enough mortgage money to minorities. The Chicago Sun-Times reported in 2007:

"Obama represented Calvin Roberson in a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank, charging the bank systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods." [As Lawyer Obama Was Strong, Silent Type December 17, 2007 By Abdon M. Pallasch]

(By the way, how’s that working out for us these days?)

Most discrimination cases in recent decades have been based not on evidence of racial animus, but merely on statistics showing that minorities didn’t wind up with as many goodies as whites did.

The argument: assuming the races are equal in merit, there must be discrimination somewhere in the system. It’s simple logic!

Since nobody in public life dares point out the overwhelming social science evidence that non-Asian minorities tend to be, on average, less creditworthy, less intelligent, and less law-abiding without being smeared as a racist, this transparently bogus ploy has enjoyed massive success over the years.

Obama is committed to preserving the status quo, in which the deck is rigged against whites by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s Four-Fifths Rule:

"A selection rate for any race, sex, or ethnic group which is less than four-fifths (4/5) (or eighty percent) of the rate for the group with the highest rate will generally be regarded by the Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact, while a greater than four-fifths rate will generally not be regarded by Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact."

The burden of proof is on the employer to vindicate the selection process. This can be so expensive and uncertain that many employers just impose hiring and promotion quotas upon themselves.

This EEOC rule applies to private employers as well as government employers. You just hear more complaints from firemen because there are Civil Service laws that are supposed to prevent post-hoc fiddling. (And, perhaps, because firemen are braver than most people.)

Obama is likely aware that the Four-Fifths Rule is objectively ridiculous. On none of the major tests used by professional and graduates schools do blacks come close to scoring at a percentile 80% as high as whites. On the Graduate Record Exam-Verbal, black college graduates on average score only three-eighths as well as whites (i.e., at what would be the 18th percentile for whites). And that’s their best showing. On the Medical College Admission Test, blacks only reach the one-fifth level.

And yet you aren’t supposed to mention these facts in polite society. As a result, almost nobody thinks about them in a systematic fashion. That’s why the liberal Justices can get away with acting as if the Ricci results, in which blacks scored at the three-eighths level on the Lieutenant’s test (exactly like the GRE-V) and the one-fifth level on the Captain’s test (exactly like the MCAT) are some anomalous mystery which a “better test” could somehow make disappear.

In reality, there only two ways to consistently make the racial gap fit within the EEOC’s Four-Fifths Rule:

• Cheat. Don’t rely on written tests where the graders can’t tell the test-taker’s race. Put most of the weight on oral evaluations, and make sure to pick judges willing to play ball to have the racial balance come out right.

In New Haven, the written exam got 60 percent of the weight, and the oral 40 percent. The city stacked the deck by making the oral exam judges two-thirds minority, but that wasn’t enough.

• Make the test so easy that almost everybody passes. Chicago now gives tests that 85 percent pass (roughly 90 percent white and 80 percent black), then chooses randomly from this horde of not utterly incompetent applicants.

The liberal justices put much effort into asking hypothetical questions about what might be the far-reaching consequences of ruling that employers must always act in a racially neutral manner.

But there’s no need for a positive dictate from the Supreme Court about how employers should act in every situation.

The rotten core of the affirmative action racket in America is the ridiculous Four-Fifths Rule.

The Supreme Court famously drew upon social science research in Brown v. Board of Education. Granted, sociologist Kenneth B. Clark’s experiments with dolls were primitive and turned out to be largely fallacious. By 2009, however, the scientific evidence relevant to Ricci is now overwhelming that the EEOC’s Four-Fifths Rule is absurd.

The Court should take the social science record into account and abolish the Four-Fifths Rule as corrupting and undermining of competence.

If we must have a quantitative guideline, a One-Fifth Rule, such as we find with the MCAT, would be far more reasonable.

What the Obama Administration may well be hoping for is 4-1-4 split decision, as in the notorious 1978 Bakke case, in which the man in the middle, Lewis Powell, ruled, in effect, that the University of California could continue using racial quotas as long as it called them “goals” instead. Justice Anthony Kennedy would be showered with “strange new respect” and be the toast of Georgetown if he could finagle a similar outcome.

I suspect Obama would be very happy if Kennedy could, say, assuage the public’s sense of fair play by giving Frank Ricci a promotion, just as Allan Bakke was eventually allowed into the UC Davis medical school, while keeping the overall affirmative action swindle intact for another generation.

Perhaps, though, Kennedy might surprise us.

[Steve Sailer (email him) is movie critic for The American Conservative. His website www.iSteve.blogspot.com features his daily blog. His new book, AMERICA’S HALF-BLOOD PRINCE: BARACK OBAMA’S "STORY OF RACE AND INHERITANCE", is available here.]

http://whidbeynewspost.com/2009/01/24/praise-for-lee-and-jackson/ http://whidbeynewspost.com/2009/01/24/praise-for-lee-and-jackson/#comments Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:51:40 +0000 http://whidbeynewspost.com/?p=591 January 24, 2009 By Chuck Baldwin January is often referred to as "Generals Month" since no less than four famous Confederate Generals claimed [...]]]>

Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson

January 24, 2009

By
Chuck Baldwin

January is often referred to as "Generals Month" since no less than four famous Confederate Generals claimed January as their birth month: James Longstreet (Jan. 8, 1821), Robert E. Lee (Jan. 19, 1807), Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall"Jackson(Jan. 21, 1824), and George Pickett (Jan. 28, 1825). Two of these men, Lee and Jackson, are particularly noteworthy.

Without question, Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson were two of the greatest military leaders of all time. Even more, many military historians regard the Lee and Jackson tandem as perhaps the greatest battlefield duo in the history of warfare. If Jacksonhad survived the battle of Chancellorsville, it is very possible that the South would have prevailed atGettysburg and perhaps would even have won the War Between the States.

…two of the greatest military leaders of all
time…Confederate Generals…Robert E. Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson two of the finest Christian gentlemen…

Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson were two of the finest Christian gentlemen this country has ever produced. Both their character and their conduct were beyond reproach.

In fact, it was Lord Roberts, commander-in-chief of the British armies in the early twentieth century, who said, "In my opinion, Stonewall Jackson was one of the greatest natural military geniuses the world ever saw. I will go even further than that–as a campaigner in the field, he never had a superior. In some respects, I doubt whether he ever had an equal."

While the strategies and circumstances of the War of Northern Aggression can (and will) be debated by professionals and laymen alike, one fact is undeniable: Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson were two of the finest Christian gentlemen this country has ever produced. Both their character and their conduct were beyond reproach.

Unlike his northern counterpart, Ulysses S. Grant, General Lee never sanctioned or condoned slavery. Upon inheriting slaves from his deceased father-in-law, Lee immediately freed them. And according to historians, Jackson enjoyed a familial relationship with those few slaves that were in his home. In addition, unlike Abraham Lincoln and U.S. Grant, there is no record of either Lee or Jackson ever speaking disparagingly of the black race.

…Lincoln ’s Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves of the North

…Grant’s excuse for not freeing his slaves was that…

"good help is so hard to come by these days."…

As those who are familiar with
history know, General Grant and his wife held personal
slaves before and during the War Between the States,
and, contrary to popular opinion, even Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation did not free the slaves of the North. They
were not freed until the Thirteenth Amendment was passed
after the conclusion of the war. Grant’s excuse for not
freeing his slaves was that "good help is so hard to come by these days."

Furthermore, it is well established
thatJacksonregularly conducted a Sunday School
class for black children. This was a ministry he took
very seriously. As a result, he was dearly loved and
appreciated by the children and their parents.

In addition, both Jackson and Lee
emphatically supported the abolition of slavery. In
fact, Lee called slavery "a moral and political evil." He also said "the best men in the South" opposed it and welcomed its demise. Jackson
said he wished to see "the shackles
struck from every slave."

To think that Lee and Jackson (and
the vast majority of Confederate soldiers) would fight
and die to preserve an institution they considered evil
and abhorrent–and that they were already working to
dismantle–is the height of absurdity. It is equally
repugnant to impugn and denigrate the memory of these
remarkable Christian gentlemen.

In fact, after refusing Abraham
Lincoln’s offer to command the Union Army in 1861,
Robert E. Lee wrote to his sister on April 20 of that
year to explain his decision. In the letter he wrote, "With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to
raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the
army and save in defense of my native state, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed . . ."

Lee’s decision to resign his commission with the Union Army must have been the most difficult decision of his life. Remember that Lee’s direct ancestors had fought in

America’s War For Independence. His father, "Light Horse Harry" Henry Lee, was a Revolutionary War hero, Governor of Virginia, and member of Congress. In addition, members of his family were signatories to the Declaration of Independence.

Remember, too, that not only did Robert E. Lee graduate fromWest Point"at the head of his class" (according to Benjamin Hallowell), he is yet today one of only six cadets to graduate from that prestigious academy without a single demerit.

However, Lee knew that Lincoln’s decision to invade the South in order to prevent its secession was both immoral and unconstitutional. As a man of honor and integrity, the only thing Lee could do was that which his father had done: fight for freedom and independence. And that is exactly what he did.

…men of honor and moral backbone.

…As a man of honor and
integrity, the only thing Lee could do was… fight for freedom and independence…And that is exactly what he did.

Instead of allowing a politically correct culture to sully the memory of Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson, all Americans should hold them in a place of highest honor and respect. Anything less is a disservice to history and a disgrace to the principles of truth and integrity.

Accordingly, it was more than appropriate that the late President Gerald Ford, on August 5, 1975, signed Senate Joint Resolution 23, "restoring posthumously the long overdue, full rights of citizenship to General Robert E. Lee."

According to President Ford, "This legislation
corrects a 110-year oversight of American history." He further said, "General Lee’s character has been an example to
succeeding generations . . ."

The significance of the lives of Generals Lee and Jackson cannot be overvalued. While the character and influence of most of us will barely be remembered two hundred days after our departure, the sterling character of these men has endured for two hundred years.

What a shame that so many ofAmerica’s youth are being robbed of knowing and studying the virtue and integrity of the great General Robert E. Lee and General Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson.

Dr. Chuck Baldwin is the
pastor of Crossroad Baptist Church in Pensacola,
Florida. He hosts a weekly radio show. His
website is here.

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