Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop?

Re:Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop? by callahad on Thursday October 09, 2014 @12:36PM (#8433465)

True, but there are specific attributes that constitute classes legally protected against discrimination. Race is one of them. Intelligence is not.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class

I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like Jordan attempted to argue that intelligence should be considered an additional protected class, like race or religion, but the courts disagreed. Since intelligence isn't a protected class, and since the discrimination was applied equally across all applicants, Jordan didn't have any cause for compensation from the police department.

Your hypothetical situation, screening for blackness, would absolutely not fly since color is a protected class.

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Re:Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop? by dllthomas on Thursday October 09, 2014 @03:38PM (#8434599)

There is also (though on a skim it might well not be relevant here) the notion that something else might be used as an excuse while someone is actually not being hired because they are part of a protected class. That is where "but we do this consistently" often enters in...

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Re:Can Someone Be Too Smart to Be a Cop? by devinmontgomery on Thursday October 09, 2014 @12:57PM (#8433600)

This is the standard applied to treating people differently on characteristics not part of a protected class:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_basis_review

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