Judge Rules That Police Can Bar High I.Q. Scores

An anonymous reader writes "A Federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a man who was barred from the New London police force because he scored too high on an intelligence test. Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected." Update: 04/16 22:01 GMT by T : Mea culpa. This story slipped through; consider it a time-machine / late-April Fool's day joke, please.

Comments

Seriously...

[Anonymous Coward]

Published: September 09, 1999

Holy Old Story!

[damn_registrars]

Anyone pay attention to the first line?

Published: September 09, 1999

This happened almost twelve years ago...

Re:Holy Old Story!

[The End Of Days]

Awww now I miss the the stupid things the government did before 9/11 turned them into wholesale Constitution tramplers.

Re:Holy Old Story!

[El_Muerte_TDS]

This is just in: Napoleon died.

This raises interesting new legal possibilities...

[Nick_13ro]

Next I propose they develop a skin pigmentation test. Those with too much skin pigmentation, too colored let's say, are to be barred from the police force. Naturally this would also be ok since the same standard was applied to everyone, right ?

Like The Old Joke

[kittylyst]

Well, as it's old news, here's an old joke to go with it: "Why do policemen always go around in threes? One that can read, one that can write, and one to keep an eye on the two dangerous intellectuals."

The Rationale Behind It

[asackett]

FWIW, way back when this story was news instead of history I asked my county's Sheriff about the rationale behind this kind of thing. He explained it thusly:

"Suppose you're an officer and you're called to a convenience store robbery. When you arrive, you find the clerk on the floor has been shot and will certainly die if you don't render aid immediately. Meanwhile, you see the robber escaping in your neighbor's car so you know it's stolen. This fits the MO of an armed robber who's been in the region for a few weeks, never strikes in the same town twice, and always kills the clerks he robs. There are no witnesses. If you render aid to the fallen clerk the criminal will escape and will almost certainly kill again, but if you pursue the criminal the clerk will certainly die and you may not succeed in apprehending the criminal anyway. What do you do?"

I immediately responded that I'd pursue the criminal. He went on to explain:

"It's not really important which option you choose because in the end some innocent is going to die. What's important is that you quickly choose a response and follow it through to the end. The rationale behind not hiring those of exceptional intelligence is that they'll waste time thinking through their options hoping to find the optimal solution when there really isn't one instead of just springing into action."

It's horribly flawed logic, but that's the general consensus among law enforcement so it's self-reinforcing. You can't promote thinking leaders from within a force that doesn't include thinking officers.

Re:The Rationale Behind It

[Man On Pink Corner]

I know the sheriff was trying to give an example of a dilemma that's likely to come up in police work, but the example he chose seems like a no-brainer, with a very clear right and wrong answer. You call in a description of your neighbor's car so other officers can look for it, then help the clerk. He'll probably be able to ID the robber or at least provide some solid clues in the event the suspect escapes the dragnet, but he can't do that if he's dead.

If you let the clerk die and fail to catch the suspect, you're no better off than you were before, and you have one more stiff in the morgue. Even if you do catch the robber, the dead clerk will still haunt your whole department, in the form of bad press and lawsuits.

One option will be second-guessed endlessly regardless of the final outcome, and the other will make you look like a hero, or at least someone who tried to help.

What's important is that you quickly choose a response and follow it through to the end.

Reminds me of a recent case in Seattle, where a roid-raging berserker with a badge emptied his Glock into a bum who was whittling with a pocket knife, after giving him four seconds to "comply." Somebody forgot to tell him that Robocop was not a training film.

Re:Not unexpected...

[arkenian]

Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected.

Using that logic, they could discriminate racially or on religious grounds. "Anyone who scored too black was rejected" or "anyone who scored too Muslim was rejected". I mean hey, they apply that standard to everyone so it surely could not contradict the principles of equal protection. That's why this is absurd.

I'll never understand what it is about a law degree and a bench that fundamentally distorts someone's ability to use solid logic. If I can see the flaw in seconds couldn't this judge maybe think on it a bit before committing it to a ruling that will affect a man's life?

It's as though the judge had a personal objection to having high-IQ police officers and was looking for an excuse to disallow them.

So I actually went and looked up the original judgement and appellate judgement on this because it was so weird. The actual argument the HR department made was that smart people would quit quickly and they chose less smart people so they wouldn't get bored being a patroller. The Court determined that they had reached this decision on a rational basis (while noting that the truth of this was beyond the scope of the Court's right to decide, for a variety of reasons) and that since they were applying the policy evenly, there was no grounds for the officer to complain.