Do you care what color your fireman or paramedic is when he comes to save your life?  I don’t.

In Memphis, however, that’s apparently a concern:

Racial quotas are fueling a year-long paramedic shortage and putting the public at risk, according to a paramedic on the city fire department and representatives of the city firefighters’ union.

. . . Crews are spread thin, and records indicate overtime costs have skyrocketed, as high as $30,000 a day in January 2004. A 11-year veteran paramedic [said that] the city’s human resources department will not fill 75 vacant paramedic positions until its minority applicant pool reaches an unconfirmed percentage.

I’m all for affirmative action, where that means outreach.  It’s important for any organization to expand its recruiting pool to areas where it didn’t before search for talent.  However, I’m opposed to quotas. 

Here’s a good rule of thumb:  When considering a scenario, if you would be offended if the races or sexes in the story were switched, then it’s probably a bad idea.  Let’s try that here:

"The city’s human resources department will not fill 75 vacant paramedic positions until its white applicant pool reaches an unconfirmed percentage."

Nope.  That doesn’t pass the test.  We’d never stand for a governmental organization that stopped hiring unless it could hire more whites.  Nor should we stand for such an affront to common sense–particularly when the hiring freeze compromises public safety.  Justice is supposed to be blind, not dumb.

(ht: BC)

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