Sept. 8, 2000 – 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.”
He said he does not plan to take any further legal action.
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.
Most Cops Just Above Normal The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average.
Jordan alleged his rejection from the police force was discrimination. He sued the city, saying his civil rights were violated because he was denied equal protection under the law.
But the U.S. District Court found that New London had “shown a rational basis for the policy.” In a ruling dated Aug. 23, the 2nd Circuit agreed. The court said the policy might be unwise but was a rational way to reduce job turnover.
Jordan has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.
Average IQ cannot increase or decrease. The test is calibrated so that 100 is always the average. It’s for this reason and many others that comparing historical testing data is difficult.
In the revised version of his book “The mismeasure of man” (about biodeterminism and measurement) Gould was asked why he didn’t draw the obvious comparison between IQ and phrenology. His answer was that such a comparison would be unfair… to phrenology. The methods of phrenology were bunk, but it’s theory (that different regions of the brain were responsible for different functions) was sound. IQ fails both in methodology and theory.
I understand that, but that means that the test has to be adjusted, which means that the middle point keeps moving. Similar to currency: $100 is $100, in 1920 or 2024 they are the same, but they also aren’t the same. Our current IQ would yield a higher score the further we go into the past, and a lower score as we travel to the future.