Dumbing Down America

No one wants dumb cops working their neighborhoods, but that's what they're likely to get in Dayton, Ohio according to this story:

The Dayton Police Department is lowering its testing standards for recruits. It's a move required by the U.S. Department of Justice after it says not enough African-Americans passed the exam.

Dayton is in desperate need of officers to replace dozens of retirees. The hiring process was postponed for months because the D.O.J. rejected the original scores provided by the Dayton Civil Service Board, which administers the test.

“It becomes a safety issue for the people of our community,” said Dayton Fraternal Order of Police President, Randy Beane. “It becomes a safety issue to have an incompetent officer next to you in a life and death situation."

Not even the NAACP supports the DOJ decision:

“The NAACP does not support individuals failing a test and then having the opportunity to be gainfully employed,” agreed Dayton NAACP President Derrick Forward. “If you lower the score for any group of people, you're not getting the best qualified people for the job,” Forward said.

This case is a window into how the liberal mind works and how they solve problems. If there are too few minorities passing the test, just lower the score needed to pass and the problem is solved. If crime is too high all we need do is decriminalize a few things like assault and battery and the crime statistics will plummet. If poverty is a problem just lower the income level below which someone is considered poor and, presto!, poverty is reduced, or even eliminated. If we followed this policy with enough resolve we could pretty soon be living in a crime and poverty-free utopia.

Wouldn't it seem more sensible, even to the folks at the DOJ, to make the police force applicant pool smarter, to insist that young men get a good education so they can qualify for good jobs, than to just water down the eligibility standards for service on the force?

Consider the message that the DOJ is sending young black males: They're telling them that they don't really need a good education to get a decent job. They're telling them that school isn't all that important, and if young black men aren't as well-educated as others applying for the same position, that's okay. We'll just lower the bar for them so that pretty much anyone can jump over it.

Come to think of it, maybe somebody lowered the bar for employment at the DOJ, too.