Federal Court Upholds Policy of Rejecting High-Scoring Police Applicants
In a case that raised pointed questions about hiring practices in American law enforcement, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York ruled that a police department could legally reject applicants who scored too high on an intelligence test. The court upheld a lower court decision finding that the city of New London, Connecticut did not engage in discrimination because the same scoring criteria were applied uniformly to all candidates.
The Case of Robert Jordan
Robert Jordan, a college graduate from Waterford, Connecticut, applied to become a police officer in New London in 1996. He took the department’s written aptitude exam and scored 33 points, which corresponded to an IQ of approximately 125. However, the department only interviewed candidates who scored between 20 and 27 points. Jordan was never called for an interview despite passing the exam with a high score.
Jordan filed a federal lawsuit alleging that his rejection constituted a violation of his civil rights under the Equal Protection Clause. He argued that excluding applicants based on cognitive ability was a form of discrimination no different from exclusion based on other innate characteristics.
The Department’s Rationale: Reducing Turnover
New London’s police department defended its policy by arguing that candidates who scored too high on the aptitude test were more likely to become bored with routine police work and leave the force after the department had invested significant resources in their training. The national average score for police officers on the same exam fell between 21 and 22, corresponding to an IQ of roughly 104, slightly above the general population average.
The U.S. District Court found that the city had demonstrated a rational basis for the policy. The appeals court agreed in its August ruling, acknowledging that while the hiring threshold might be considered unwise, it represented a legally permissible method of managing personnel costs and reducing turnover.
Broader Implications for Law Enforcement Hiring
The ruling effectively established that police departments have legal latitude to set upper limits on cognitive test scores as part of their hiring criteria. Critics argued that the decision institutionalized a preference for less intellectually capable officers, potentially affecting the quality of policing. Supporters of the policy maintained it was a practical human resources decision based on documented patterns of employee retention. Jordan, who went on to work as a prison guard, chose not to pursue further legal action after the appeals court ruling.
