Social Engineering Gone Wrong
Originally, Dayton Police applicants had to score 66% on one segment of the test and 72% on the other, or as we remember from our school days, the equivalent of a solid “D” and a “C-minus.” The Justice Department insists that the scores should be lowered to 58% and 63%, respectively, or a “D” and an “F.”
There is much that could be said against this plan, but note this: Eric Holder, the nation’s first Black Attorney General, is missing an excellent opportunity to raise the aspiration levels of all Americans by insisting that achievement standards should be color blind. In other professions where testing is required—law, medicine/dentistry, accounting and the like—you do not find lower thresholds for minorities. The same should hold true for aspiring Dayton Police Officers. Perhaps General Holder should meditate on the words of the late Morehouse College President and theologian Benjamin E. Mayes: “Not failure, but low aim is sin.”