Disparate Impact Drug Testing? –

Disparate Impact Drug Testing? – The Boston Globe has a troubling article about the results of drug testing in the Boston police department (via Andrew Sullivan). In the three years since all Boston police officers have been subject to random drug testing using a sophisticated new test done on hair samples, according to the BG, “nearly twice as many minority officers have tested positive for drugs as their white counterparts, prompting advocates for the officers to question whether the test is racially biased.” (DispHAIRate Impact?)

In recently released results 45 officers, 2% of the force, tested positive. Of those 45, the BG reported, there were 16 whites, 3 Hispanics, 26 blacks, and no Asians. (There are 552 black officers, 95% of whom were thus drug free.)

There is controversy over the validity of the test. Some studies have indicated that black hair is more likely to retain traces of drugs longer than blond hair, for example. Other studies purport to demonstrate that this hair sample test is much more advanced and immune to false positives than the urine test still in widespread use. The Miami police have used the test and found no disparate results between dark- and blond-haired officers. Some Chicago officers who were fired as a result of a similar test challenged the test in court, and lost.

I have no opinion about the validity of the test. What I find disappointing is that whenever any tests indicate troubling racial disparities official civil rights advocates immediately denounce the test. It’s apparently easier to discredit the messenger than to worry that the message may be bad news that should be dealt with. True to form, Leonard Alkins, head of the Boston NAACP, said the disparate drug test result raises a red flag … about the test. “It just does not make sense that black people have more of a drug problem than white people.”

There is a pattern here. Wherever civil rights advocates see evidence of disparities — whether in drug use, SAT scores, or the numbers of women interested in becoming plumbers or playing college sports — they assume equality and thus either condemn the method of measurement or explain the disparity as the result of discrimination — but for the channeling conducted by guidance counselors more boys would become cosmetologists and more girls truck drivers, etc. There is no approving talk of “difference” when the rewards of any difference are negative.

I fervently wish it were true. I wish all the racial and gender disparities in our society could be traced to bad tests or ongoing discrimination — they would be far easier to eradicate than the alternatives. But wishing doesn’t make it so.