Monday, March 29, 2010

Bleh.

Sorry I haven't been posting much. I've been working on some big papers for school. If you have any brilliant insights on how employers can resolve the apparent catch-22 in the Ricci vs. DeStefano case, please e-mail me. Other than that, I'm going to be busy for a bit, which usually means "arguing on the internet other places."

Here's something cool though, Sady Doyle wrote 13 Ways of Looking at Liz Lemon. I liked that, though I felt she left out the key context that most of the men on the show are no prizes either. Arguably Grizz and DotCom are the most sympathetic people on the show and they are men, though minor characters.

Anyway, back to the books, at least until something that really inspires me appears.

CC
Criminal justice *Headdesk* of the day.

8 comments:

Eve said...

The New Haven firefighters allege on their website (http://www.newhaven20.com) that the black firefighters who didn't pass invested the least time and money into study materials and test prep.

If that's true, one thing employers might do is require the purchase of study materials, require attendance at on-premises test prep classes, offer part reimbursement for anyone who feels they need additional help, etc.

Ideally, that would lead to more people of all races actually passing the test. And if it didn't, I think it would clarify whether the flaw was really in the test (i.e., black people attended just as many study classes and didn't do as well) or in the amount of study time (i.e., black test-takers didn't take advantage of the employer-offered help).

Eve said...

The New Haven firefighters allege on their website (http://www.newhaven20.com) that the black firefighters who didn't pass invested the least time and money into study materials and test prep.

If that's true, one thing employers might do is require the purchase of study materials, require attendance at on-premises test prep classes, offer part reimbursement for anyone who feels they need additional help, etc.

Ideally, that would lead to more people of all races actually passing the test. And if it didn't, I think it would clarify whether the flaw was really in the test (i.e., black firefighters with just as much experience attended just as many study classes and didn't do as well) or in the amount of study time (i.e., black test-takers didn't take advantage of the employer-offered help).

Joel Monka said...

Or how about double-blind hiring and promotions? Have a different fire department from another city administer the tests, and a third department score them without any personal information or identification, going on the written papers and transcripts of the orals (to prevent trying to guess race from accent), the results refered back to the original fire department.

Chalicechick said...

Because of the concern that it could be the tests themselves.

We do double blind exams in law school and there's one professor who has a real genius for writing exams that minority students score worse on. I have no idea how he does it but I witnessed it myself as I've always been a mediocre law student as far as exam taking goes and one of my friends is a really smart African American law student who outscores me most of the time. Except that time. (And one other time that I know of, and this is out of at least half a dozen classes.)

I have no idea how this happens, but it does sometimes.

CC

Chalicechick said...

And there does seem to be some hinky stuff going on. The testing company claimed that they "oversampled" minority lieutenants and captains in the interview process before they put the test together*.

Ok, but a few paragraphs later, the testing company representative is quoted as having testified that the result of the test "was in line with results of the Department's previous promotional examinations."

If the examination in question is in line with previous examinations, then previous examinations would have reccommended no African Americans and just a few hispanics for promotion, so one wonders how the claimed oversampling was possible.

CC

*Under Griggs v. Duke Power, tests for employment have to closely match the skills reqired for a job. To oversimplify, if you're using a test to hire a file clerk, you can't just use an intelligence test, you have to have them do things like have a timed test where one must put ten similar names in alphabetical order.

The usual way to figure out which skills are important to doing a job is to ask people who have the job. (This sort of thing sometimes causes problems in itself. I recall a case where police sargeants kept saying that an important job qualification was "command presence," which no one could figure out how to test for and which was quite inconsistently defined except to note that none of the female applicants had it.)

PG said...

I thought Sady's critique was lacking for two reasons:

(1) It was kind of oblivious to the fact that Tina Fey's own parodies of Sarah Palin could be read as "Liz Lemonism," i.e. the woman who sees herself as very-smart-but-not-that-pretty going after the intellect of the former beauty pageant contestant who is causing zinging sensations at National Review and The Weekly Standard. In other words, Palin was Fey's real-life Cerie, except Fey was in the position to actually play Palin herself.

(2) It slightly adverted to (with regard to porn and raunch culture) but didn't really take on Lemon's apparent lack of interest and occasional actual distaste for sex. #13 on the list has a pretty obvious answer: Lemon wouldn't feel awesome about this because she doesn't seem to like sex in general, and sex under the particular circumstances it occurred with James Franco would just embarrass her.

I also just fundamentally disagree with Sady's assumption that Liz Lemon is supposed to be a feminist. Where on the show does she express concern for women's -- even if only white, cis-gendered, able-bodied, heterosexual women's -- equality? She's no more a feminist than she is an anti-racist; i.e., inasmuch as believing in sex and race equality is part of the stereotypical Upper West Side liberal politics, she's into it, but no more than that.

Joel Monka said...

"Because of the concern that it could be the tests themselves."

But if the tests were written by the other fire department, and all fire departments were using other departments for hiring and promoting as well, then that becomes a de facto test of the testing itself- if, for example, both Dayton and Cleveland had used Cincinatti to do their testing, and they got bad results, that would pinpoint Cincinatti as the the department with a tester like your professor. Then Dayton and Cleveland are off the hook legally, as they would have demonstrably done as much as humanly possible to ensure fair testing- and the catch-22 culpability was the issue; the suits would be against Cincinatti instead.

PG said...

I've seen the episodes you mention, and I guess to me they are indicative of Liz's not really thinking of herself as a feminist, but instead occasionally gesturing at "uh, equality! empowerment!" on the basis of gender the same way she gestures at those concepts on the basis of race. She doesn't seem willing to actually make serious demands on anyone on the basis of believing that women should be treated equally. E.g., I have a hard time believing that someone who conceives of herself as a feminist would title something "The Girlie Show."

Also, I'm slightly weirded out by someone's beginning an article with how very much she not just mentally but physically resembles Liz Lemon, who is played by Tina Fey, and then insists throughout the rest of the article that Tina Fey is gorgeous. That seems... kinda boastful.