I hardly ever see this kind of thing except in so called right-wing fish wrappers. My thanks to Matt Drudge.
Here is a news article that says the EEOC has raised the issued of if requiring a high school diploma of people applying for a job is discrimination. It might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
You bet it is discrimination. The high school diploma, like the college degree is a discriminator that separates those who can get a task done from those who can't. That is why the Department of Defense likes its new enlisted personnel to have a high school diploma. When that is the rule the force is better able to do the training needed and generally better disciplined and able to do the job. It is a sign of self-discipline and attention to task.
I am prepared to grant the EEOC that those with learning disabilities may not earn a high school diploma at the same rate as those without such learning disabilities, but I would think that an employer who has a job that someone with a learning disability could do, that they might actually want to hire such a person because that person has shown the hard work and discipline needed by just getting to where they are in life.
On the other hand, in the back of my mind I wonder how many children with "learning disabilities", because they have been drugged, have not been able to successfully get to that 18 years of age launch point.
This is an area that needs, it seems to me, more investigation before we head off in some direction, which only by happenstance will be the proper direction.
Thanks to Reporter Dave Boyer.
Regards — Cliff
3 comments:
Utopians and progressives (yes, there IS a difference) have been whining about this for as long as I can remember.
First, discrimination is a fact of living, some of it good, some of it bad, some of it just is because it makes common sense. We discriminate all the time, much of it to protect ourselves. Would you stop and pick up some junkie looking kind of person on some back street of downtown Lowell, bring them home and give them room and board for as long as they want?? Well...if the answer is "yes" then why haven't you done it?
There is always an agenda and this issue has not only one but several. There is the agenda that wants to insist that everyone is equal in spite of their disabilities, some of which render the person functionally incapable of life itself, let alone any cognitive ability. But, there are a number of folks who maintain that we need to exhaust every possible measure to ensure that they are given equal opportunity, and any perceived failure to do so constitutes discrimination...and perhaps even racism. Well, sure. Why not!!! Let's make a special set aside in medical school admission quotas (another form of enforced discrimination) for those who are suffering from quadroplegia and perhaps even acute CP. That there isn't a prayer in the universe that they will ever graduate and practice medicine...but we must still provide them the chance.....even if it means another much more capable student will not be admitted...the one who might be the one to come up with a cure for CP or cancer.
The Armed Forces were subjected to the "agenda" in the late 60's in the form of Project 100,000, an LBJ Great Society program in which somewhere between 320k and 354k men who scored in the 10-30 percentile on the Armed Forces Qualification Test were allowed to enlist. DoD mandated that they be placed in every career field found in the military. It was a total disaster, not only for the members of what became known as the Moron Corps, but for the units who were forced to employ them. Many, a sizable number were sent immediately to Viet Nam and were summarily killed in combat like so much fodder. Their cognitive abilities were of such minimal magnitude that their fellow soldiers feared that they would get everyone killed, so often, they were pretty much hung out to dry.
Trying to teach a pig to fly is a waste of time and it frustrates the pig.
Did someone lie when they said, "All Men Were Created Equal?"
Education is where we find out just HOW "equal" we are. Though, the paradigm is flawed. We need to push more vocational/technical training in America.
There is an implicit lie, in that we degrade anyone that isn't a "Doctor." The capitalist "pigs" do that, so that we will claw each other on the way to the "top." They profit, nonetheless.
Fix the paradigm by helping young folks "find their bliss," meaning what they are good at and enjoy doing. This is not coddling. It is efficiency.
But first, we have to stop lying to them. They DON'T need to keep up with the Joneses.
I fully agree that we have been building up an "education bubble" that is going to burst one of these days. In the mean time, the bubble is distorting not just the views of high school graduates, but also distorting the options of older students, such as myself. Post high school education has shifted from teaching and research by dedicated scholars to big business. Half the employees of a college (and universities) these days are administrative staff.
There is no doubt that we need to be encouraging more students to pursue skills in the trades. And, part of that is making GLTHS available to more students.
At the same time, college is currently a refuge from unemployment. I understand that more women are going to college than entering the work force, since a calculation has been made by them, or their parents, that the extra education will pay off when the jobs do come back. The implication is that guys are not thinking this way, but being guys.
I wouldn't blame "the capitalist PIGS" for all this. I just read an EMail today from someone who turned down a great job doing policy analysis at a NATO Hq in Belgium to get a PhD. His comment was that in Government you can get in with a Masters Degree, but eventually the top slots go to PhDs. So, unless everyone is a capitalist something or other, this inflation of requirements is pretty much a universal phenomenon. And, of course, Neal, Jack and I are not on the road to a PhD. We probably all have the prejudice that a person with a PhD is someone who knows more and more about less and less.
As for all men being created equal, I think that is true. Then it all starts to separate from there. However, we need to judge each person as an individual and give him or her the change to prove himself or herself. The best choice is not always the prettiest (physically, intellectually or resume wise).
Regards — Cliff
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