Like other cities, Syracuse operates under a consent decree, which stipulates that the city must hire a certain percentage of minority firefighters and police officers.
Would it shock you to know I think such mandates are ridiculous as well as racially discriminatory?
By the way, I put the word reverse in quotations marks, because there’s no such thing. Racial discrimination is racial discrimination.
A white voluntary firefighter who seeks employment with the fire department sued the city, claiming Syracuse is hiring lower scoring blacks over higher scoring whites. A federal court ruled against him in 2008, but an appeals court overturned the ruling and remanded the case.
According to a 30-year-old consent decree, the city is permitted to prefer black applicants over whites until the number of blacks hired reaches a certain percentage. Three decades ago, blacks comprised about one percent of firefighters and about 10 percent of the city’s employees. The court decreed that black firefighters should account for 10 percent of each rank in the department, and the percentage of blacks in the department should match that of the general pool.
Fast forward to 2010, and black firefighters account for 16.6 percent of the fire department. Five years ago, the general labor pool was 21 percent black. When will the preferences stop? How does the city of Syracuse get away with discriminating against whites? One preferences proponent’s answer:
“When people have knife wounds, they sometimes need surgery to heal. It’s more cutting with a knife. But it’s a different kind of cutting — one is the problem and one is the solution.”
People who think this way don’t seem to understand or care that the government has the power to give or to take away opportunities and set up barriers based on race. Those days are supposed to be over. As long as the government isn’t using this power to penalize blacks, however, the mainstream approves. But “reverse” discrimination is just as odious as “forward” discrimination.
As the article notes, federal courts tend to side with preferences opponents these days. For example, the highest court in the land ruled against the city of New Haven after it tossed a promotions test because too few minorities scored high enough to qualify for promotions.
I hope the court cancels the consent decree. If that happens, you can bet your life savings someone will file suit claiming the employment exam is “discriminatory.” And the battle to bar the use of race in government hiring decisions continues.
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