Thursday, July 2, 2009

Dorf:
If the fire dep't did bow to pressure from Reverend Kimber, it was pressure that was itself due to the disparate impact of the firefighter promotion test results. Kimber was not exerting pressure based on some unrelated concern. He did not, for example, threaten a riot unless government jobs were given to political cronies. Rather, Kimber wanted to see some African-American firefighters promoted to lieutenant and captain, and was concerned that the combination of the 'rule of three' and the test results would block that. This was exactly the same concern stated--albeit less flamboyantly--by other critics of the test.