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NY City Councilman to Solve Greatest Concern When House on Fire: Lack of Diversity
By David Kelsey / December 15, 2009
Like many of you, I suppose, I fear situations that may require emergency services. None of us want to be in that position where there is a personal emergency and we are forced to look into the abyss and face that terrible question as the rescue team approaches. The question of, “Will this emergency team be diverse enough?”
Thankfully, Leroy Comrie, the Deputy Majority Leader of the NYC Council, is doing what he can to ease fears in those situations.
From Comrie’s press release:
New York City Council Deputy Majority Leader Leroy Comrie (D-Queens) hosted a City Hall press conference yesterday to respectfully urge his colleagues to pass legislation he has introduced which would allow any candidate for the position of New York City Firefighter, who possesses a high school diploma (or its educational equivalent) from a New York City High School, to become eligible for an additional eight point credit on the open competitive firefighter exam.
He was joined by several of his Council colleagues, as well as members of the members of the FDNY’s fraternal organizations of color, the Vulcan Society and the Hispanic Society, and representatives of the Local 375/Civil Service Technical Guild and the Grand Council of Hispanic Societies in Public Service.
“Today I am urging my colleagues to pass legislation that will allow any candidate for firefighter that possesses a high school diploma (or its educational equivalent) from a New York City high school to become eligible for an additional eight point credit on the open competitive firefighter exam,” stated Council Member Comrie. “Although the population of New York City includes more than 65% minorities, the racial composition of the FDNY is made up of only 11% minorities, thus making the FDNY the least diverse fire department of any major city in the United States.
This is wonderful news. Although there are some spurious claims of a need for years and years of specific and sometimes quite difficult and complicated training to become truly superior firepersons, other more reasonable voices such as Comrie believe that any high school grad can reasonably pickup a hose and point it at the fire, and as someone not trained in these matters, I say we just go according to the latter opinion, since it promotes diversity.And nothing is more important than that.
In a city as widely diverse as ours, this trend is unacceptable and we must do all we can to ensure that our most noble institutions reflect our great city.
Damned straight! After all, if you had a fire, wouldn’t you want the most diverse team possible? And they are all high school grads, right? And once the fire department is more diverse thanks to a lowering of standards, we can then demand that the leadership of the fire department reflect that diversity, and lower standards for promotion.
It’s just life and death, people. And diversity must come first.
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If I weighed 250 pounds and was stuck in a burning house, I wouldn’t care where the firefighters came from, who their parents were, where they prayed or what their grade point average was in high school, or if they graduated. I would just want to make sure they could get me out without hurting me and put the fire out as quickly as possible.
This diversity crap has always been and still is BS pushed by feel-good people who are clueless. If a person can’t do the job they are hired for, they should be gone. Just because so-called minorities aren’t found in certain occupations in the same percentage as their population doesn’t mean there is discrimination. It means they are not interested.Â
zbird,
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2009/07/vulcan-society-v-fire-department-of-new.html
Don’t forget the boost for being a NYC resident as well.
Seems you left out a hugely important factor–how many points are on the test and how much of a different does this really make? An extra 8 points on a 1000-point test is nothing. On a 20 point test, it’s ridiculous. Â
–Z
No it’s not what Comrie is claiming. It’s a related issue, but I’d also wager that it’s at the root of his thinking on the issue.Â
You would lose that wager. Because if that were the case, he wouldn’t be seeking to deny immigrants and domestic transplants from fireman position by rigging the process against them.
 The man clearly has issues with fair play. Standardized or otherwise.
Perhaps you find it reassuring that your firefighter can sit in a quiet room with a number two pencil and match geometric shapes or pick the best of four solutions to a problem, but the application from there to an emergency situation is dubious at best.
I don’t argue that all of these skills are necessary for a fire fighter, but is this truly the best way to test them?
No it’s not what Comrie is claiming. It’s a related issue, but I’d also wager that it’s at the root of his thinking on the issue. I don’t think that the NYFD tests have ever been studied, but studies on the validity of standardized tests have not been glowing, particularly across racial lines. That said, they remain popular and are likely a political fact for the near-term. The eight point boost for an NYC high school diploma piggybacks nicely on the existing five point boost for residency. Â My guess is Comrie sees it as a more politically viable solution to rethinking the entrance examÂ
Visual-spatial skills are intuitively an appropriate demand for firefighters. So is problem solving. General aptitude can’t be taught so easily at a late stage of development.Â
 Your suggestion that they don’t matter is quite dubious. Nor is it what Comrie is even claiming.Â
When it isn’t related to firefighting, as the FAQ says. Or should one be able to apply their GRE scores to it?Â
you’ve done some great googling there on general firefighting training, how about googling the test in question, the "open competitive firefighting test" which is unique to NYC:
Here’s something from the nyc.gov website:Â Â
Does the Written Examination test my knowledge of firefighting or the FDNY?
Answer: No. The Written Examination is a test that gauges a candidate’s ability to learn and perform the work of a Firefighter. It may include questions on reading comprehension, problem solving, spatial recognition and applying rules to general concepts.Â
So the exam doesn’t test firefighting ability. So the six point bonus won’t mean your firefighter didn’t bypass training, but that they maybe don’t test well.
So I see the concern lurking underneath your "satire". We want firefighters who can fill out scantron sheets! This bonus will undermine the necessary not-firefighting-related test-taking skills that are so important in a blaze. There’s already the dangerous five point bonus for being a NYC resident. Â
David,
Damn straight.Â
If we’re afraid the firefighting team isn’t diverse enough, why not offer scholarships for minority students to attend firefighting school? Solve the problem (if there is one) at its root – education. If (for example) you want more black doctors, then get more blacks into medical school. But for G-d’s sake, don’t lower the standards of qualification for doctors!Â
You cannot force equality. The idea of liberty*** is that everyone has a right to equal access. There’s something to say for equalizing access to education for everyone (by scholarships, etc. to those who cannot afford), but what in hell is the justification for unnaturally forcing equality by lowering standards?Â
*** Okay, I’m playing a bit loose here. According to pure libertarianism, there’s no justification whatsoever for any welfare entitlements at all, whatsoever. See "The Rise of Government and the Decline of Morality" by James A. Dorn, http://www.cato.org/pubs/catosletters/cl-12.pdf. But I assume very few Jews will subscribe to this pure Locke-ian libertarianism, and I don’t hold by it either. As an aside, however, I still recommend reading Dorn’s article anyway. He argues against welfare on three grounds: (1) It’s unconstitutional, (2) It violates Locke-ian libertarian morality, and (3) It’s economically unsound and doesn’t achieve the desired end. Most Jews concerned with social justice will reject (2), but (1) is an important argument for any American who believes in intellectual honesty (if welfare violates the Constitution, then at least, we need to amend it), and (3) is certainly valid if true; the Talmud says a good logical argument is as valid as something chapter and verse from the Bible. At the very least, (3) might convince us to modify our welfare policies in certain ways, even if we continue to reject (2) Locke-ian morality, and even if we amend the Constitution to permit welfare.
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