In New York City, firemen are called the Bravest, to distinguish them from the Finest, who are the cops of the NYPD. Now add a new title: the Weakest. The New York Post has the poop:
The FDNY for the first time in its history will allow someone who failed its crucial physical-fitness test to join the Bravest, The Post has learned. Rebecca Wax, 33, is set to graduate Tuesday from the Fire Academy without passing the Functional Skills Training test, a grueling obstacle course of job-related tasks performed in full gear with a limited air supply, an insider has revealed.
“They’re going to allow the first person to graduate without passing because this administration has lowered the standard,” said the insider, who is familiar with the training. Upon graduation, Wax would be assigned to a firehouse and tasked with the full duties of a firefighter.
Of course she will be, because the Leftists who run New York City command it. Just like the late Kara Hultgreen, the first female carrier-based Navy fighter pilot, who washed out in her first attempt to qualify on the F-14 but was given a second chance in 1994 by a politically correct Navy eager to please the Clinton administration. Lt. Hultgreen died shortly thereafter when she crashed her fighter on approach to the USS Abraham Lincoln near San Diego.
Some FDNY members are angry. “We’re being asked to go into a fire with someone who isn’t 100 percent qualified,” the source said. “Our job is a team effort. If there’s a weak link in the chain, either civilians or our members can die.”
Well, that’s just tough darts, buddy. Don’t you know that “social justice” is far more important than getting the job done?
Wax’s graduation comes as the city celebrates the FDNY’s 150th anniversary and as the department is under pressure by the de Blasio administration to hire more women. Only 44 of the FDNY’s 10,500 firefighters are female.
While Wax fell short, two other female probies in the graduating class passed the FST with flying colors. “They’re kicking butt. They’re doing better than 50 percent of the class,” the insider said. “When they get assigned to a firehouse, they’ll be welcomed with open arms because they’ve done what everyone else has gone through.”
Other female firefighters aren’t pleased about Wax’s treatment, either. “A lot of the girls in the field are pissed because they feel like they’re getting lumped into the same category of a female getting special treatment and not meeting the same standards as the males,” the insider added. “It devalues what the women in the field have accomplished.”
That of course is true of any affirmative-action program, whether based on color, sex or anything else. Standards are standards, derived not arbitrarily as part of a (straight, white, male) conspiracy but on reality. This particular test is grueling, the way it should be.
Last December, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro told a City Council hearing on the FDNY’s efforts to recruit women that he had changed FST requirements to lower obstacles. “We still grade the people. You can still fail it if you go beyond the time, but you’re not automatically failed from the program,” he said.
He also indicated he wanted to act before a possible sex-discrimination lawsuit after the city paid $98 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the FDNY of discriminating against minorities. “We must no longer wait for a judge’s ruling to tell us what fairness means,” Nigro said. United Women Firefighters, an organization of FDNY women, objects to the FST test, contending it unfairly bars females.
The next time your building catches on fire, New Yorkers, don’t call a firefighter. Call a lawyer.
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