re: Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops.

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Damn, this case just got settled? I remember this story from years ago.

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A New London policy that denied a job offer to a more intelligent applicant might be ignorant but it’s not illegal, at least not according to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A federal appeals court ruled that the City of New London did not discriminate when it rejected a job application from a man who scored too high on an intelligence test.

Since the courts’ initial summary judgment in 1999 the story has made the rounds several times on the Internet, including a new round of repeats in recent months. Each time around the story inspires commentary about the reasons police agencies might avoid more intelligent applicants. Not as widely discussed are the reasons a court dismissed Robert Jordon’s appeal.

Attorneys for New London argued that city officials based their decision on instructions for the Wonderlic Personnel Test and Scholastic Level Exam, which recommends hiring employees who score at or near certain levels for various jobs. “Additionally, a body of professional literature concludes that hiring overqualified applicants leads to subsequent job dissatisfaction and turnover,” the court wrote.

Those studies about job satisfaction and turnover have been challenged but not refuted, the court reasoned. As long as the city has a rational basis for its policies, it’s not the court’s job to judge the wisdom of the policy, the 2nd Circuit Court stated. (See Robert Jordan v City of New London No. 99-9188, 2000 U.S. App. Lexis 22195 (Unpublished).)

A Nation of Laws
While the 2nd Circuit Court decision might leave room for further argument, it rests on an important principal of our tripartite system of government. Legislatures can pass unwise laws. Executive agencies can enact unwise policies. When a law is unwise but not unconstitutional, it’s up to voters – not the courts – to tell the government to wise up.

John Adams – the second president of the United States – is attributed with enshrining the principle in the Massachusetts Constitution: “(T)he judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end it may be a government of laws and not of men.”

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