Police Officially Refuse To Hire Applicants With High IQ Scores

http://countercurrentnews.com/2014/04/police-officially-refuse-to-hire-applicants-with-high-iq-scores/

Many have suspected it, but now it appears to be official: police departments refuse to hire applicants with high IQ scores.

Critics of law enforcement have long suggested that police officers tend to be selected for their lack of critical thinking, but news that department hiring processes officially disqualify high-scoring applicants might still come as a shock to many.

While a rare exception to the rule might slip through the cracks, if you are too smart, police departments simply won’t hire you.

This policy became solidified in a federal ruling dating back almost a decade and a half ago. The ruling came with little fanfare from the mainstream, corporate media, who didn’t apparent find it to be newsworthy.

In 1999, a Federal judge dismissed a lawsuit by an applicant to the New London, Connecticut police department who was barred from being hired after successfully taking the intelligence portion of the police examinations. The disqualification came because he had scored “too high” on the test. The New London Police Department made it clear that they did not want the “bottom of the barrel” when it came to intelligence, but they also didn’t want anyone who was “too smart” either.

This little-known ruling was made public back in September of the same year. Judge Peter C. Dorsey of the United States District Court in New Haven, Connecticut confirmed that the plaintiff, Robert Jordan, 48, who holds a bachelor’s degree in literature, had been denied an opportunity to even interview for a job with the department, for no reason other than his high test scores.

Judge Dorsey ruled in favor of the department, saying that Mr. Jordan was offered no protection under the law in this case. There is no legal protection given to intelligent people from discriminatory hiring practices by individual police departments, Dorsey explained. The judge continued, explaining that police departments held all applicants to this same standard and thus they rejected all applicants who scored high. As a result, this could not be held as discriminatory in nature.

The next time you cross paths with a law enforcement officer and wonder how anyone so stupid managed to get hired by their department, now you know that this stupidity might in fact be the very thing that qualified them for the job.

(Article by Jackson Marciana; editing and contributions to this report by Arman B.)

Filed under: General Problems