The problems of meritocracy?
DuneyBlues wrote:
[img][800:735]http://theonlinecitizen.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Meritocracy-1024x735.jpg[/img]
http://www.slideshare.net/motochan/meri ... -singapore
http://www.slideshare.net/motochan/meri ... -singapore
I have been in front of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB).
For "employment careers", "Meritocracy" is better than anything not based on valid and objective merits of performance.
To be in the place I was with the MSPB, a ranked university graduation was involved (an "Outstanding Scholar Program"). I was ranked in the top 1% overall, and in the top 3% by my major. I didn't receive additional "points" for being "international", "minority", "religious", "disadvantaged", "handicapped", nor for "male/female". Many university professors added grade points to students' rankings which were based on these categories on the basis of "adverse impact".
My ranked graduation placed me in one involved "employment candidates" pool, while other job pools were also involved. Because of this one pool, the "Clarence Thomas effect" was utilized by the MSPB against all of my legal interests.
Two other rankings were from "objective" and statistically "validated" exams, two included at direct MSPB particular contest were one written & one oral. The written exam was under high security and numerically ranked, and I received a perfect score. The oral exam was statistically verified as valid & objective (by "direct and/or disparate" regulation criteria included under the Civil Rights Act), only for "pass or fail" usage, and I received the score of "pass" on the oral exam.
I was also seeking employment through the State Rehabilitation Department, again with a perfect score on a written test. With the Rehab program, the semi-famous case "too smart to be a cop" reasoning was used to disqualify me from the possibility of being benefited by all Rehab programs with my disabling impairments.
The MSPB ruled that my perfect score was from assumed only aspects now labeled the "Clarence Thomas effect", in that my score was only perfect in a prejudiced assumed view that all points originated from artificially added "adverse impact" points. The MSPB ruled that my perfect score had no merit. The U.S. Department of Treasury threatened to have federal criminal charges initiated against me for "crimes" based on my being disabled and obtaining perfect test scores.
Since I cited my disability status as qualifying me for protection under the Rehabitation Act as a handicapped person with federal employers, the MSPB declared that that was sufficient evidence to invalidate my "pass" score on the oral examination, with the MSPB then ruling that I failed the "pass/fail" oral exam despite what was on record.
Much later, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the judicial decision that a disability meeting the criteria of being disabled under Appendix 1 with the Social Security Administration ( http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/cfr_2011/ ... 4PApp1.pdf ), did not establish any actual, any history of, or any regarded impairments under the Rehab Act (and then the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)). The ADAAAA was not retro-active.
If the U.S.A. was a true meritocracy, this would not have happened.
A much more simple example would be the merit in choosing a bus driver from a pool of two people, one with a Driver's License, and the other not, on the "merit" of having a Driver's License. Just look at all the easily overlooked details involving having a Driver's License. Is such an element of "Meritocracy" useful, and why???
Tadzio
