And check out Stuart Taylor’s latest article at the National Journal — part of the exchange during oral argument between the attorney for the firefighters in the Ricci case — Karen Lee Torre — and two of the judges — Judge Sotomeyor and Judge Rosemary Pooler.
From Taylor’s piece:
In response to Judge Rosemary Pooler’s assertion that “no one was hurt” in the New Haven case, Torre said: “No one was hurt? For heaven’s sakes, judge, if they didn’t refuse to fill the vacancies, these men would be lieutenants and captains. How can you say they weren’t hurt? They’re out $1,000 apiece [for test preparation]…. They spent three months of their lives holed up in a room, like I was and you were when we took the bar exam.”
Torre went on to emphasize why the test was a valid basis for making promotions — and what can happen when promotions go to people who have not done their homework:
“These men [are not] garbage collectors. This is a command position of a first-responder agency. The books you see piled on my desk are fire-science books. These men face life-threatening circumstances every time they go out…. They are tested for their knowledge of fire, behavior, combustion principles, building collapse, truss roofs, building construction, confined-space rescue, dirty-bomb response, anthrax, metallurgy…. The court [should] not treat these men in this profession as if it were unskilled labor. We don’t do this to lawyers or doctors or nurses or captains or even real estate brokers. But somehow, they treat firefighters as if it doesn’t require any knowledge to do the job….
“Firefighters die every week in this country…. A young father and firefighter, Eddie Ramos, died after a truss roof collapsed in a warehouse fire because the person who commanded the scene decided to send men into an unoccupied house… with a truss roof known to collapse early in [a] fire because of the nature of the pins that hold the trusses together…. And the fire chief had to go tell a 6-year-old that her father wasn’t coming home.”
Judge Sotomayor responded by observing that there must be “a fair test that could be devised that measures knowledge in a more substantive way.”
Translation: New Haven needs a test that won’t give such an advantage to the firefighters who have learned the most about fighting fires.
