No Cause for Quotas

To the Editor:

I have read with interest your page one article (Sept. 14 issue) about the Vulcans' lawsuit against the Fire Department alleging bias because a smaller percentage of blacks passed the Firefighter test than did whites, thereby having a disparate impact. A disparate impact is irrelevant, unless it can be shown that the test was actually biased against blacks. This contention is idiotic.

Stuyvesant High School, one of the premier high schools in the city, consists of 36 percent white students, 59 percent Asian students, 3 percent black students and 4 percent Hispanic students. In order to get into Stuyvesant High School, one must have high grades and pass a competitive examination (percentages are rounded in the Web site (insideschools.org).

Clearly, this is an example of a disparate impact, but it is not bias. Far fewer blacks and Hispanics get high grades and graduate from high school with Regents' diplomas than is the case for whites and Asians.

There are undoubtedly many socio-economic factors that influence and cause these results; biased exams are not among them.

If one wants to insist on quotas, regardless of grades on an exam, one may certainly make this demand. This demand is ignored when it comes to medical licenses and passing the Bar. This demand is obscene if one is talking about competitive exams designed to test merit and fitness.

The famous black columnist Carl T. Rowan castigated Howard University's law school in an article in the New York Post on Sept. 14, 1986 for admitting poorly qualified students. He pointed out that 85 percent of the Howard University Law School graduates failed their Bar exams. Clearly, the bar exams were not biased, but rather poorly qualified students were permitted to graduate, who had no possibility of passing the Bar exams.

I once argued that literacy is not a prerequisite for collecting garbage and I was justly corrected for my ignorance. There are many rules and regulations in the Department of Sanitation that must be read and understood. When making purchases in a department store, doesn't the average customer want a literate, correctly speaking sales force?

The courts have often instituted quotas to be politically correct and to remedy past injustices. The civil service exams administered by the city are not biased. In some instances, the exams are dumbed down, as was pointed out by Personnel Director Judith Piesco in the 1980s before she was fired for telling the truth under oath and subsequently won a lawsuit for her unjust dismissal.

I certainly hope that the Justice Department and the courts in the Vulcans' lawsuit do not equate disparate impact based on tests results with racial bias.

Dr. GEORGE SILBERMAN, Retired Sup. III, Social Work