Sarasota’s hiring policy is just the latest in a nationwide pattern
involving the lowering of standards in order to increase “diversity,” a
commodity so valuable that it apparently supersedes pretty much all
other considerations.
In Columbus, Ohio, the police and fire departments have become more
lenient in hiring cops and firefighters who have taken prescriptions
drugs not actually prescribed to them, who have had their driver’s
licenses suspended for reasons such as failure to pay their car
insurance, and who have had “minor physical or emotional domestic
violence in the past 10 years” that didn’t result in criminal charges.
Again, “diversity” is the magic word that makes it all okay. The
Columbus police and fire departments are just too white, so now they
will accept deadbeats. The implication here is that minorities are
disproportionately delinquent in their financial responsibilities, which
is actually not that far off the mark, but unmentionable unless you
happen to be advocating “diversity.”
Amy DeLong, chief of Columbus’s Civil Service Division, echoed Chief
DiPino almost word for word: “We are not lowering standards.” You’re
not?
DeLong continued: “This is a tweaking and obviously we don’t want
someone who is physically abusive or has a bad driving record, but we
don’t want to eliminate people that could be good police officers.” What
a relief! I thought standards were being lowered, when in fact they’re
just being “tweaked.”
In North Miami, Florida, the police department abandoned its swimming
test in 2004 because black applicants couldn’t pass it. Swimming is
raaaaacist! Like all standards destined to be abandoned, the swimming
test was uncontroversial until a push for diversity made people question
its necessity. Suddenly it became a silly requirement with no practical
application to police work, something like knowing how to juggle or
ride a unicycle. There’s just one problem—a police officer, in the
course of his duties, might someday have the swim. He might have to, oh I
don’t know,
rescue someone from drowning.
Once we’ve accepted that cops don’t really need to know how to swim,
it’s only a short mental hop to the idea that lifeguards don’t either.
Yes,
lifeguards. In 2013, the city of Phoenix decided that it
needed more minority lifeguards at its city pools. “The kids in the pool
are all either Hispanic or black or whatever, and every lifeguard is
white and we don’t like that,” said a Phoenix official. Geez, no racism
there. She added that “the kids don’t relate; there’s language issues.”
Hmmm…maybe the kids should learn English? Sorry, asking people to learn English is racist. I take it back.
… In our society, diversity is a goal pursued above all others, including competency.
who embody those universally admired traits or it will have cops with college degrees. As if it can’t have both. But, as she already admitted, the goal is not to increase the police department’s quotient of “character, integrity, and life experience,” but rather to boost its melatonin.
