This is encouraging.
Clarice Feldman lays out more at the LINK
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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.
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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by the Carter administration, which limited the hiring practices of the federal government based on flawed and outdated theories of diversity, equity, and inclusion.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.
"It's simple, competence and merit are the standards by which we should all be judged; nothing more and nothing less," said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. "It's about time people are judged, not by their identity, but instead "by the content of their character.""
"For over four decades, this decree has hampered the federal government from hiring the top talent of our nation," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Civil Rights Division. "Today, the Justice Department removed that barrier and reopened federal employment opportunities based on merit -- not race."
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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, in a well-argued article by "Cremieux," 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."
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Today, the disparate impact doctrine is finally -- after decades of unrelenting wins -- racking up defeats. Disparate impact cases against police and fire departments are being dismissed, precedents are being overturned, and, amazingly, consent decrees once considered sacred, which barred the application of tests are being challenged. The most recent and portentous example of this is the Trump administration's attempt to overturn the Luevano Consent Decree that has barred civil service examinations.
On its own, dissolving Luevano is an incredible and unexpected piece of progress away from credentialism and towards a world where selection is possible again. Most importantly, it signals that the new administration in Washington has a grander goal: ending all Title VI disparate impact regulations and setting up a series of court cases to kick off which will -- quite likely -- make the use of tests in the private sector feasible again.
Clarice Feldman lays out more at the LINK
