[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Without getting to into politics it seems logical to me that in a field where lives are at stake the people with the highest test scores should be promoted, despite skin color, gender, etc...

Well that depends on what's being tested. If the test focuses on stuff largely unrelated to the job, then I wouldn't necessarily want that. Ginsburg's dissent discusses how nearby cities like Bridgeport ran into similar issues racial disparities in the results, but have since changed their tests to factor the oral portion more heavily. The argument being that oral examinations focus more on how a firefighter would immediately respond to any number of given situations. Since Bridgeport made that change, African-Americans have scored significantly higher on the tests.