This should be entertaining to watch play out:

Teh Article Link

ALTON BAY, N.H. —

A man seeking full-time police certification is suing the New Hampshire Police Standards & Training Council and the state of New Hampshire, citing gender discrimination after he repeatedly failed a portion of the physical fitness test.

David Scott was hired as a full-time officer by the Barnstead Police Department in 2009, on the condition that he successfully completed the New Hampshire Full-Time Police Academy.

Scott passed all of the academic exams and met requirements in bench presses, sit-ups and push-ups, but failed 12 times over the next two years to complete a 1.5-mile run in the allotted time, finishing 11 seconds too slow in his best run.

Scott, who was already a part-time officer, requested in December 2011 that the academy waive the run requirement to allow him become a full-time officer, but they refused.

Women in the same age group are allowed nearly three minutes more time than men on the same 1.5-mile run, leading Scott to file the lawsuit, which said that the "defendant has discriminated against plaintiff on the basis of his sex."

Scott alleges that the academy discriminated against him based on "an arbitrarily selected different minimum standard based on sex that does not measure in any way the minimum physical ability required to do the job of a certified full-time police officer."

In the lawsuit, Scott is requesting to be certified as a full-time officer, receive back pay with interest, receive full benefits and money for damages and attorney fees.





So. . . .


I've seen this in place for a long, long time going even back to my military days where female and male fitness standards were not one and the same.

Part of me thinks if the guy can't pass the timed run, then he probably shouldn't be doing the job. Then the other part of me wonders why, in the day and age of folks constantly yelling about gender and race inequality, we maintain two standards at all ( male vs female ) for the same job. The physical demands are the same for all field officers, regardless of race or gender. You can either keep up, or you can't. Allowing a lower standard to placate some lawsuit threatening group somewhere is dangerous to the officer and the other officers that may rely upon them.

I can see this going as follows:

The standards will drop to the lower of the two. It would almost have to. If you set the standard to the higher of the two, the forthcoming lawsuits would bury you from the folks who couldn't pass the NEW standard, but could pass the OLD one.

Personally, I'm all for equality between the genders, but the same standards should apply for both sides if they are performing the same job.

Your thoughts ?


Last edited by Daye; 11/29/12 04:16 PM.