Well, this explains a lot.
Court Okays Barring High IQs for Cops
A man whose bid to become a police officer
was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost
an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New
York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate
against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to
everyone who took the test.
“This kind of puts an official face on
discrimination in America against people of a certain class,” Jordan
said today from his Waterford home. “I maintain you have no more control
over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or
anything else.”
Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took
the exam in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125.
But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27,
on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police
work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.
The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.