Preserve Merit

To the Editor:

Everywhere you turn, it seems, the civil service merit system is under attack.

Now, the city has settled a lawsuit charging that ex-Parks Commissioner Henry Stern had a system within his department that had black supervisors with the same administrative duties earning less than their white counterparts? That's inexplicable! Wasn't the merit system designed to avoid exactly those kinds of abuses?

Similarly, the FDNY is currently denying HazMat-trained Marine Unit Officers further HazMat training and the 12-percent increment that goes with that, despite the fact that "every shipboard operation is a HazMat incident."

The assault on the merit system comes from all sides. In recent years, women have sued challenging some of the FDNY physical entrance exams; various black fraternal organization have sued challenging the written entrance exams, claiming that "disparate impact (differing passing rates) proves discrimination."

Without question, the city and the state have always been the most eager to eradicate the system that eliminated the nepotism and cronyism that old-time politicians lived off of. Even a partial return to the nepotism and cronyism wouldn't be bad for politicians.

When you consider it, the assault on standardized exams and civil service standards in general, via the argument that "minimally qualified is all that should be tested for and required," is as wrong-headed and outrageous a violation of fairness as is Henry Stern's paying supervisors in the same job title differing salaries. That's an argument that lends itself to a return to the nepotism and cronyism of a bygone era.

The merit system, with its system of written and physical exams, is the only system that gives everyone, regardless of race, creed, color or political connections, the same opportunity. Under that system, all you have to do is pass the tests.

JOSEPH M. KEARNEY, FDNY HazMat-1