: 4c040e82@news.povray.org...
>  I like how the article carefully avoids specifying exactly how hiring
> based on test scores is "discriminatory".

The SC ruling is only about the timeliness of the claim, i.e. it does not 
have to address the core issue itself. However, it should be noted that it's 
a 9-0 decision, meaning that even the conservative justices (including 
Scalia, who's usually opposed to affirmative action) sided with the 
plaintiffs.
Anyway, after digging into mountains of obfuscated US legalese, the gist of 
the story is as follows:
- the city of Chicago held a written cognitive test to pick candidates who 
would later be tested for actual firefighting abilities. Candidates who 
passed the test with a score>65 (out of 98) were qualified.
- among the qualified candidates, those below 89 were told that they were 
kept on the eligibility list but that they would probably never be called to 
pass the actual tests. The 89 cutoff score eliminated most of the qualified 
black candidates.
- the discrimination claim is that the 89 cutoff score was an administrative 
decision unrelated to future job performance. "Unrelated" is the keyword 
here as there would be no case if the cutoff score had been job-related. In 
other words, it's as if the City of Chicago had tried to hire software 
developers and, in addition to programming tests, had the candidates run a 
100-meter sprint, effectively eliminating the overweight ones.
It's an interesting story anyway, showing the complexity of maintaining 
justice in societies plagued with social inequalities.

For further reading:
Whole SC briefs and documents:
http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Lewis_v._City_of_Chicago
Worth reading: the Opinion of the Illinois District Court that describes in 
detail the tests and the problems people (including the test designers) had 
with them:
http://www.kentlaw.edu/faculty/cshapiro/classes/EmployRelationSP10/CourseReadings/LewisvCityofChicago.pdf

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