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Standing Up for Higher Standards...
from: Merit Matters
Two recent local newspaper editorials (see below) and a very recent Michael Bloomberg quote echo FDNY Deputy Chief Paul Mannix’s charge that the racial preferences based on the flawed and leaky judicial theory of “disparate impact,” amounts to a “quota system.”
The New York Post’s editorial included this statement, “Last January, he even imposed strict racial hiring quotas on the department, ordering that every five new hires must include two blacks and one Hispanic until precisely 293 minorities have been hired,” while the NY Daily News editorial offered this, “If Garaufis wants absolute parity - in effect, a quota - he should just order it. But of course, nobody wants that. Everyone wants fair hiring based solely on merit.”
Last week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg noted, “"If some people don't want to go into that career, forcing them into it just because you have this quota system doesn't make any sense."
ALL of these coming AFTER, Deputy Chief Paul Mannix (President of Merit Matters) excoriated such race-based remedies as “quotas,” in a CBS Evening News TV interview.
It is one thing for firefighters and prospective Fire Dept. candidates to support the merit system that has offered them at least the same opportunity offered to anyone else who can pass a basic battery of tests, but it’s much riskier, at least career-wise, for Chief officers to take such a stand, even though they’re intimately familiar with why higher standards correlate with a higher quality workforce and are very aware of the intrinsic value of that.
Sad to say, it takes real courage for guys at the rank of Chief Officers, such as Chief Paul Sandellas (New Haven) and Chief Paul Mannix (FDNY) to support the merit system and higher standards because things are so "political" at that level. Their presence in that battle shows that that kind of courage is not all that common, even in a profession that defines itself by "courage."
Two things that those who won't stand up for anything, including something as important as basic standards must know are, (1) standing up for the merit system and high standards is NOT the same as "standing up for any given race or ethnicity" and (2) those who oppose the merit system have no problem using blatantly racial ("racist"?) arguments in their appeals and NEVER miss an opportunity to unabashedly "stand up for THEIR own race."
Isn't it well past time that those sitting comfortably on the sidelines (at all ranks), at the very least either stand up for standards or else, openly support the race-based hiring those opposed to the merit system want?
Bottom line, those OK with some of ANY race or ethnic background being treated as 2nd class citizens are both laying the groundwork for themselves ultimately being consigned to 2nd class citizenship, while at the very same time, proving that they richly deserve that fate, far more so than those who fought against it...infinitely more, in fact.
After all, they’ve already proven they don’t have the stomach to fight it.
from: Merit Matters
Two recent local newspaper editorials (see below) and a very recent Michael Bloomberg quote echo FDNY Deputy Chief Paul Mannix’s charge that the racial preferences based on the flawed and leaky judicial theory of “disparate impact,” amounts to a “quota system.”
The New York Post’s editorial included this statement, “Last January, he even imposed strict racial hiring quotas on the department, ordering that every five new hires must include two blacks and one Hispanic until precisely 293 minorities have been hired,” while the NY Daily News editorial offered this, “If Garaufis wants absolute parity - in effect, a quota - he should just order it. But of course, nobody wants that. Everyone wants fair hiring based solely on merit.”
Last week, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg noted, “"If some people don't want to go into that career, forcing them into it just because you have this quota system doesn't make any sense."
ALL of these coming AFTER, Deputy Chief Paul Mannix (President of Merit Matters) excoriated such race-based remedies as “quotas,” in a CBS Evening News TV interview.
It is one thing for firefighters and prospective Fire Dept. candidates to support the merit system that has offered them at least the same opportunity offered to anyone else who can pass a basic battery of tests, but it’s much riskier, at least career-wise, for Chief officers to take such a stand, even though they’re intimately familiar with why higher standards correlate with a higher quality workforce and are very aware of the intrinsic value of that.
Sad to say, it takes real courage for guys at the rank of Chief Officers, such as Chief Paul Sandellas (New Haven) and Chief Paul Mannix (FDNY) to support the merit system and higher standards because things are so "political" at that level. Their presence in that battle shows that that kind of courage is not all that common, even in a profession that defines itself by "courage."
Two things that those who won't stand up for anything, including something as important as basic standards must know are, (1) standing up for the merit system and high standards is NOT the same as "standing up for any given race or ethnicity" and (2) those who oppose the merit system have no problem using blatantly racial ("racist"?) arguments in their appeals and NEVER miss an opportunity to unabashedly "stand up for THEIR own race."
Isn't it well past time that those sitting comfortably on the sidelines (at all ranks), at the very least either stand up for standards or else, openly support the race-based hiring those opposed to the merit system want?
Bottom line, those OK with some of ANY race or ethnic background being treated as 2nd class citizens are both laying the groundwork for themselves ultimately being consigned to 2nd class citizenship, while at the very same time, proving that they richly deserve that fate, far more so than those who fought against it...infinitely more, in fact.
After all, they’ve already proven they don’t have the stomach to fight it.
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