Clarice Feldman writes for the American Thinker about a welcome legal development.
Forty-four years ago, the federal government entered into a consent decree in which it agreed to scrap the Professional and Administrative Career Examination (PACE). It agreed then with the plaintiffs that the test resulted in disparate outcomes, (42.1 percent of white examinees passed the minimum and only 5 percent of black examinees and 12.9 percent of Hispanic examinees did). This week the department moved to vacate that consent decree and the court did so.
“WASHINGTON – Today, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division ended a court-imposed decree initiated by the Carter administration, which limited the hiring practices of the federal government based on flawed and outdated theories of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
In Luevano v. Ezell, the Court dismissed a consent decree based on a lawsuit initially brought by interest groups representing federal employees in 1979. The decree entered in 1981 imposed draconian test review and implementation procedures on the Office of Personnel Management — and consequently all other federal agencies — requiring them to receive permission prior to using any tests for potential federal employees, in an attempt to require equal testing outcomes among all races of test-takers.” …
… The shift means the federal government can again test applicants for competence. I believe this change will free up private employers as well to resume appropriate testing for open positions as courts no longer consider disparate impact. (In higher education, the Supreme Court has already removed the status of disparate impact.)
This shift … marks the death of credentialism, which “has polluted the American psyche for generations, and it has impaired the functioning of the job market and the government in the process. At one point, it was believed to be necessary, if not useful, good, and perhaps even complementary to meritocracy. But that belief is delusional, and we are all now victims of credentialism.”
