Yesterday in local Virginia news it was reported that the City of Chesapeake settled a lawsuit with the Dept of Justice that alleged that a math test was racially biased against African Americans and Hispanics applying for the position of Police Officer.

I always understood math to be a pure science. Could someone explain how a math test could be considered biased?

NeedKarma

I agree, numbers are numbers whether you are asian, native, or from Galapagos. Perhaps it had something to do with the text of the word problems.

Emland

The local news is so busy trying to keep viewers that they drop bombshells like this story, but don't explain anything behind it.

asterisk_man

Typically the idea is that the test uses terms and implicit ideas that may be relatively less familiar to various groups.
For example, if a question requires the student to have prior knowledge of the number of days that it takes Mars to orbit the sun it would be biased toward people of Martian descent.

This is for informational purposes only and is not meant to imply my support or lack there of for the concept.

Squiffy

I know where I live the levels of attainment needed are reduced for some ethnic groups in an attempt to make the police force more attainable to them, to increase the number of ethnic minority officers. It could be something to do with that. Here, certain ethnic groups are believed to be lower achievers at school, and so this was designed to make it all more equal.

galactus

Just more of that lame politically correct, affirmative action crap. Dumb it down. Ol' whitey has to get a 90% and a so-called minority 40 % to pass. I've seen that before. They are not helping anyone by whining race everytime something hapens they don't like. That horse has been beat to death.

Squiffy

I agree! Things like that hould be based on merit not altered to be politically correct!

NeedKarma

Kids, you're missing the point - it's a Math test, not geography or history. How can "solve 298/34" be racial biased?

Squiffy

No not missing the point! (and not a kid lol, I am 29 pmsl!) what I am saying is that because some ethnic groups are regarded as being lower attainers, the levels of attainment needed are often reduced. If that didnt happen, it could be regarded as being racially biased.

Clough

It might be considered to be a biased test if how a person performs on the test is no indication of how they might perform on the job.

What is below, is from the following site:

Chesapeake Virginia To Pay Up Because Police Entrance Test Assumed Minorities Could Solve Simple Math Problems « Bad Cop News

"The lawsuit, filed last July in U.S. District Court, alleged that Chesapeake violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 with its use of the math test as a screening device. The complaint argued that the pass/fail nature of the test did not predict future job performance yet resulted in a disproportionate impact on black and Hispanic applicants.

Between March 1, 2001, and Jan. 1, 2006, the city required applicants to score 70 percent or higher on the math portion of an entrance exam. A Justice Department review found just over 57 percent of black applicants and nearly 89 percent of white applicants passed.

“Any test used to select public safety officers must select the best and most qualified candidates without unfairly screening out qualified candidates,” said Wan J. Kim, an assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division.

The Justice Department concluded the discrimination was not intentional, Hallman said.

The Chesapeake Police have since changed their exam requirements to an average combined score of 66 percent on the math, reading comprehension and grammar tests, Hallman said. The Justice Department consented."