Obama Justice Dept. Forces City To Lower Standards For Police

Defenders of affirmative action always try to clothe its naked racial preference with rhetorical camouflage — “diversity,” “inclusion,” “breaking down barriers,” race just “one of many factors,” etc. — but survey data and votes on anti-preference initiatives (where liberals haven’t succeeded in keeping such votes off the ballot) reveal that most people aren’t fooled. In the past several days, for example, I’ve put up two posts on how affirmative action actually works in practice. This one noted that in Wilkes-Barre, Pa, applications from even minimally qualified minority applicants for teaching positions resulted in “an automatic hire.” And this one quoted the Syracuse police chief admitting that women and minority applicants “would be able to score lower on entrance exams and still be admitted to the academy.”

Now, reports ABC News Channel 2 in Dayton, Ohio,

The Dayton Police Department is lowering its testing standards for recruits.

It’s a move required by the U.S. Department of Justice after it says not enough African-Americans passed the exam….

Under the previous requirements, candidates had to get a 66% on part one of the exam and a 72% on part two.

The D.O.J. approved new scoring policy only requires potential police officers to get a 58% and a 63%. That’s the equivalent of an ‘F’ and a ‘D’.

The DOJ’s forced lowering of standards is so blatantly offensive that even the NAACP in Dayton opposes it.

“The NAACP does not support individuals failing a test and then having the opportunity to be gainfully employed,” agreed Dayton NAACP President Derrick Foward….

“If you lower the score for any group of people, you’re not getting the best qualified people for the job,” Foward said.

“We need to work with the youth and make them interested in becoming law enforcement officers and firefighters,” said [Dayton Fraternal Order of Police President Randy] Beane. “Break down the barriers whether they are real or perceived, so we can move forward in this community.”

That’s hard to do when the U.S. Dept. of Justice, under the racialist leadership of Eric Holder, is busy erecting new barriers to racial equality.

Some of you, apparently unlike Eric Holder and his boss, may recall that the Supreme Court recently repudiated a similar race-based rejection of test results in New Haven that was supported by the Obama administration (and its first Supreme Court appointee, Sonia Sotomayor).