Local police departments suffer from a longstanding lack of personnel diversity.

A major reason lies with the psychographic portion of applicant aptitude tests.

A sample of Reno's exam appears on the city's website. Its "biodata" portion is stuck in 1956.

That's when Fortune Magazine Editor William H. Whyte published his landmark bestseller "The Organization Man."

Gregory Peck starred in the classic film "The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit" the same year. Both titles treat institutional momentum toward conformity and thus sterility.

City University of New York Distinguished Professor Whyte (1917-1999) exposed the "go along to get along" momentum which dominates large organizations. (See the "Dilbert" comic strip in this newspaper.)

Still in print, Organization Man remains a staple in business schools worldwide.

Whyte reveals how to cheat on a personality test. Six decades later, an entire industry has grown up around doing just that. Google at will.

There are purportedly no right or wrong answers, but Whyte advised "when asked for word associations or comments about the world, give the most conventional, run-of-the-mill answer possible."

Reno's test instructions advise "The credit that is assigned to each answer choice is based on how successful employees describe themselves when honestly
responding to these questions." Translation: fit in.

Whyte added "When in doubt about the most beneficial answer to any question, repeat to yourself: 'I loved my father and my mother, but my father just a little bit more. I like things pretty much the way they are. I never worry much about anything. I don't care for books or music much. I love my wife and children. I don't let them get in the way of company work."

Actual questions asked by personnel managers have included "who was the disciplinarian in your family?" Woebetide the applicant who says mother, which may well bias the system against some minority applicants.

Reno asks "What do you feel has been your major accomplishment outside of work? A. Family activities. B. Development of self. C. Community activities. D. Development of social activities. E. Something else."

Evaluators look for patterns among responses to 54 such questions.

"Dr. M.L. Dantzker, former Fort Worth, Texas, police officer, criminal justice professor and mental health specialist, wrote his doctoral dissertation on the role psychologists play in the pre-hiring screenings of police recruits," Truthout.org writer Candice Bernd reported last year.

Dantzker noted that "normative data for police officers under-represents women and minorities...and it fails to measure...conscientiousness...it didn't do anything for truly recognizing whether a person had the proper traits or not to be a police officer."

The Sparks Police Department currently numbers three African-Americans among a force of more than 100. Reno has an even lower percentage, five among about 320.

Minorities may not apply for many reasons, but testing geared toward organizational sameness only serves to widen what author Jelani Cobb last week called a trench which has become a canyon, where the public feels jeopardized by police who in turn feel endangered by a heavily-armed populace.

In 1970, former Nevada Attorney General and future Supreme Court Chief Justice Charles Springer advocated hiring "better police" to help heal the wounds of the 1960s. Unbiased testing opens doors for a better police force.

The Reno-Sparks NAACP will entertain any and all constructive solutions at our open forum at 7:00 p.m. Thursday, July 14, at Northern Nevada Hopes, 580 W. 5th Street in Reno.

America's communities are being tested.

__________________
Patricia Gallimore is president of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. First Vice-President Andrew Barbano is editor of NevadaLabor.com/

Don't diminish value of technical education
SAFETY WARNING: Sparks City Council votes Dec. 14 to allow unlicensed plumbers & electricians
Guest editorial from Stan Jones and Andrew Barbano
Reno Gazette-Journal online 12-10-2015 / Print edition 12-14-2015

The Sparks City Council will vote this Monday, Dec. 14, to remove all licensing requirements for plumbers and electricians. This is not the signal Nevada needs to send as we continue to diversify our economy.

The construction industry has yet to fully recover from the Great Recession. Many experienced workers left the trades and will not return.

Congress just passed and the president just signed a $305 billion infrastructure bill which will increase the demand for skilled trade labor.

Sparks City Hall is poised to send a very negative message to much-needed young people considering technical education.

Part of the city's rationale, included in the original agenda description of this item, is that the city has failed to enforce licensing requirements for the past 23 years and they are thus no longer needed.

However, the city's own website states that "faulty installations can cause fires, flood damage and other hazards, and also force you to make costly repairs before you can sell your house."

Nevada taxpayers have made and continue to make substantial investments in technical education.

Are we to tell students at the Academy for Career Education (ACE) charter high school or Truckee Meadows Community College that their hard-earned training has been devalued? I would not want to be the Sparks official who breaks the news that just about anyone can perform plumbing and electrical services in the Rail City.

Under current city code, which should remain in place, plumbers and electricians must provide evidence of their qualifications to practice their trades and must annually renew. This protects the public interest.

If the council passes this item, Uber drivers and car salesmen will be subject to more oversight than plumbers or electricians.

Almost every day, someone in a high position extols the need for an educated workforce in the expanding Nevada economy.

Diminishing the value of workforce education contradicts those lofty goals.

As the former state commissioner of labor, I have seen the damage that can be done by unqualified, unlicensed construction workers.

Please contact the Sparks mayor and councilmembers and ask them to vote down item 10.2 on the Dec. 14 agenda. Their phone number is (775) 353-2311 or click on "city leaders" at CityOfSparks.US.

Please call or write and attend Monday's meeting if you can. It begins at 2:00 p.m. at city hall on Prater Way and Fourth Street directly across from the Sparks Post Office.

It's your community and these are your leaders. Hold them accountable.

The value of work should be upgraded, not diminished.
__________________
Stan Jones served 12 years as state Labor Commissioner under Republican and Democratic Nevada governors.
Andrew Barbano is editor of NevadaLabor.com

UPDATE: COMPLETE REPORT ABOUT AND FALLOUT FROM SPARKS COUNCIL ACTION

_______________________

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