There is a controversy in the New York fire department where FDNY candidate Wendy Tapia will be allowed to graduate despite failed the physical test to become a firefighter six times. Adding to the controversy, Lt. Elizabeth Osgood, who objected to Tapia’s special treatment, was allegedly barred from promotion for months. Tania’s treatment has raised objections that the FDNY is trying to avoid a gender discrimination lawsuit after it was sued successfully for $98 million for racial discrimination.
Tapia was conditionally graduated on May 17, 2013 and was allowed five more chances to run the required 1.5 miles in 12 minutes or less.
United Women Firefighters, a group of active and retired FDNY women, campaigned to get Tapia extra times to pass the exam. They have insisted that she was overtrained and that her criticism amounts to “hazing.” Tapia, 34, was assigned to Engine No. 316 in East Elmhurst, Queens, but never worked a shift. She blamed the first failure on a foot injury but then failed the test five more times.
I expect many will now argue that the FDNY cannot now refuse to conditionally graduate men and refuse the times six Mulligans on testing criteria without being guilty of gender discrimination against males.
Over the years, various written exams and degree requirements have been dropped for police and firefighters as discriminatory. However, physical tests have been treated as objective and essential not just for public safety but the safety of officers and firefighters (and their comrades) in dangerous circumstances. The question is whether litigation pressures are placing units at risk in relaxing physical strength requirements. The same controversy has been raging in the military this year.
What do you think about allowing candidates more chances and conditional graduation to increase the numbers of women firefighters?
Does this mean that instead of saving six people in a burning building she will save only one? There are somethings that some men can do that women can’t like become U. S. N. Seals
They fear the discrimination lawsuit but not the one from the family of the person she could not carry out of a fire?
What do you think about allowing candidates more chances and conditional graduation to increase the numbers of women firefighters?
I think that either you (man or woman) are qualified to do the job…or you are NOT. IF you are not qualified, unfit, unable, incompetent then you should not be given the position and you certainly should NOT be specially inserted into the position for the false and stupid idea that there should be equality.
If you do hire, out of diversity, some incompetent typists, sales representatives, even stock brokers…..you will have some level of dysfunction and probably some business losses.
If you hire incompetent fire fighters or police officer or promote women to combat positions where they are unable to function….people will DIE. Even hiring incompetent auto mechanics can be a life or death decision for the unsuspecting clients who need their brakes fixed.
It is not just irresponsible to artificially increase the number of women (or any other ethnic preferences) and sacrifice function……it is morally offensive and possibly even criminal, when someone dies because you just have to have X number of women, blacks, hispanics, transgendered or whatever personnel.
In a job, like that of a firefighter, where seconds count and actual lives are on the line, anyone, and I do mean ANYONE, incapable, for whatever reason, of not meeting the required standards necessary to fulfill those crucial duties and requirements should be eliminated. Period. One doesn’t get five or six cracks at saving a life–where the circumstances demand immediate and often individual action, involving superior strength, agility and coordination. I can only wonder how many lives either have been lost, or will be lost, in our desperate PC quest to allow all–even the most unfit among us–to attain positions for which they are most obviously unqualified.
david, “I have noticed that most servers in restaurants are women. What is wrong with that? Women simply have a better aptitude for that kind of work. Their personalities are more nurturing and caring. We should embrace that, not say something is wrong with that. ”
Puleeze. Wait staff are among the worst paid making it the perfect job for women. $2.10 an hour plus tips. Most of that $2.10 goes to taxes and FICA. Men at the same skill level can get any number of jobs that pay $8.25 an hour. That’s the sort of thing that happens with gender specific roles. It isn’t the gender that’s limiting, it’s the perception of those doing the hiring.
bettykath wrote: “Wait staff are among the worst paid making it the perfect job for women. $2.10 an hour plus tips. Most of that $2.10 goes to taxes and FICA. Men at the same skill level can get any number of jobs that pay $8.25 an hour.”
Women have the same opportunity for those $8.25 an hour jobs as the men. All you are doing is pointing out yet another gender difference where women and men have different attitudes and aptitudes for this particular type of work. Men are more apt to negotiate for better pay or to leave a job to pursue a higher salary elsewhere. Men tend to be bigger risk takers than women. Also, I suspect women are much better at earning tips than men are.
Affirmative Action is (should be) about really looking for qualified minorities. All pre-hire requirements should be appropriate for the job and all hires should meet them or have a probationary period during which the requirements must be met or they find a new job.
This is a clear example of the liberal equality meme gone amok. We should embrace gender diversity and the separate roles it creates for men and women. I am all for equal opportunity, but not forcing equality where it does not exist.
This reminds me of one of my clients who owns several rent-to-own stores in Arkansas. I have traveled to different companies so I have experience with hiring practices, and I can say that her company was by far skewed toward females. The female skew was very obvious when I met with her managers and other leadership staff in a conference room. I don’t have a problem with that, but then a woman applied for a delivery position. The manager made the mistake of telling the applicant that they usually hire men for that position because they have to lift heavy sofas and other furniture. The applicant filed a complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which quickly fined my client something like $22,000 if memory serves me correctly. It was a lot of money. She wrote them a check for the transgression of the manager saying they preferred hiring strong men for the deliveryman position. I thought that was a gross injustice because the company clearly did not discriminate against women. If anything, they favored women. The EEOC did not care about that evidence which was presented to them.
I have noticed that most servers in restaurants are women. What is wrong with that? Women simply have a better aptitude for that kind of work. Their personalities are more nurturing and caring. We should embrace that, not say something is wrong with that. Give equal opportunity for anyone to apply, but let the employer decide who is best suited for the position. If an employer demonstrates gross hatred toward a particular gender or race, then that is a different matter and should be dealt with, but that bar is set way too low at this point in time. We need to have the cultural pendulum swing the other direction from where it is now.
SJWs always double down.
The people who can see the effects of affirmative action in jobs where the differences between people are most marked and the inability to perform most irreconcilable, or even dangerous, but unable to think that this same disqualification might exist across a wide spectrum of jobs and training must themselves lack skills in critical thinking.
The case regarding affirmative action before the SCOTUS is about this very issue, as even uber-liberal SCJ Ginsberg was able to convey.
In which randyjet experiences reality, makes a critical observation, applies it to his own life, and rejects affirmative action for women at his workplace.
How then does he continue to maintain a belief in the exact same lie in the guise of race?
What do you call people who deny reality?
I am still in favor of affirmative action as I said in my comment. Affirmative action does not or should not mean the elimination of valid rational prerequisites for certain jobs. I was discriminated against when I was in the military because I was too big to fit into the cockpits of the training aircraft. That is a reasonable limitation and discrimination. The same holds true for many jobs, and if a woman can meet the same requirements as a man, then she should get first crack at a job there.
The stupid thing is to look at the composition of the NYFD and cry about the fact that there are almost no women in it. There is a good reason for that since there are few women who can qualify for the simple obvious reason that women and men are NOT the same physically. I was especially struck by the woman in question having stress fractures. That alone should show that she is NOT qualified to be a fire fighter. It is a biological fact that women’s bones are smaller and cannot stand up to the same stress as males. DUH! There are undoubtedly some women who could do this, but they are the only ones who should make the cut. Basketball would have a hard time defending itself in court against white players who are obviously discriminated against since there are FAR more black players and are WAY out of proportion to their numbers in the general population.
In my field of aviation, I am still in favor of affirmative action, by which I mean that given that two candidates are of equal qualification, then if one is female or black, then if there is an imbalance of those folks in the work place, the minority should be selected. I am not in favor of hiring based mainly on race or sex. There are some planes that cannot be flown by an average woman, such as the ones I fly. They are too heavy on the controls with no hydraulic boost, and requires great upper body strength to save the aircraft when it is trying to kill the pilot. Even some women who have gotten the type rating have refused to fly it after some bad experiences because they have found they cannot fly it for that reason.
Randyjet’s comment up above is right on! Fire fighters are important. Make each candidate prove their merit. No room to cut the specs for a fat woman or lazy male with low IQ. I did not say “retard”.
I think it is a Jerry Jeff Walker song. Perhaps Randy Newman. It is called Short People. But the words can be changed to protect the innocent.
(musi)
Don’t want no Faaat people!
Don’t want no Faaat people!
Don’t want no faaat people round here.
Stupid slips through in all professions and positions. Sometimes it’s unionized and sometimes slipped a few benneys under the gavel.
As long as the men get 6 tries at every thing I am fine with this.
The standards must be the same. They should also be applied to all firefighters who are in the field.
Harrison Bergeron lives!
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
While I am in favor of affirmative action, and women’s equal opportunity, I have to object to this travesty of having a lesser standard for women. I worked in an oil refinery for a number of years, and my incoming class there had the first two women to hire in as regular refinery workers. Initially I was all in favor of this, but over the years practical experience showed me I was wrong. Almost all of the women who worked in operations on the units NEVER pulled their weight at work. When it was time to climb a 200′ tower to open bleed valves, they went missing or outright refused to do it. So I and the other men had to do their job. When big valves had to be opened or closed by hand, they were useless. It required good upper body strength to do the job, and all the women could not do it. I cannot speak to the specifics of a fire fighter job, but I imagine it is much the same. Peoples LIVES are at stake and every person MUST pull their weight. Thus I have no sympathy for the so called discrimination of these women.
I agree with Joseph Jones above. Give her some other city job which does not require her to move her fat arse very quickly.
Sounds like she starts her career at age 34 as a useless tub of you know what (rhymes w/pit). Guess what? In ten years she’ll be age 44 and be unable to climb a flight of stairs without a long break. IOW, worse than useless at an emergency scene because she’ll need help, so you loose two FFs.
Maybe Karma results in her hire causing the death of one of the persons responsible for this travesty.
The sickening thing is there are certainly tens of thousands women worthy of the job that would do anything in the world for her position.
Tell us about the $98M case NYFD lost.
“There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.”
…F. A. Hayek