Intelligence and public policy
Encyclopedia
A large body of research indicates that intelligence
measures such as Intelligence Quotient
(IQ) varies between individual
s and between certain groups, and that they correlate with socially important outcomes such as educational achievement
, employment
, crime
, poverty
and socioeconomic status
.
In the United States
, certain public policies
and law
s regarding employment, military service, education and crime incorporate IQ or similar measurements. Internationally, certain public policies, such as improving nutrition and prohibiting neurotoxic toxins, have as one of their goals raising or preventing a decline in intelligence.
legislation was passed in many US states which allowed, or encouraged, sterilization
of "feeble-minded
" individuals.
In the 1927 case Buck v. Bell
, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
closed the 8-1 majority opinion upholding the sterilization of Carrie Buck
, who along with her mother and daughter was labeled "feeble-minded", with the infamous phrase, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
Eugenics
fell out of favor in the middle part of the century and is now widely denounced, though memories of the period continue to influence public policy
.
scores predict educational performance better than they predict any other outcome, and cognitive testing is pervasive in academics. Central policy issues concern the proper role of testing in assessing educational quality and in college admission; efforts to characterize and close the educational achievement gap
between racial and socioeconomic groups in the US; and the importance of cognitive ability differences in educational affirmative action
.
The existence of educational achievement gap
s between racial and socioeconomic groups is broadly accepted; the source and stability of the gaps remain areas of active research and debate. The No Child Left Behind Act
of 2001 (NCLB) is aimed explicitly at reducing achievement gaps by race. Federally defined formulas in NCLB call for elimination of all achievement disparity by 2014. Regardless of the source of the gap, most educators agree that it must be addressed. They often advocate equitable funding for education.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted state and federal statutes to require that IQ Tests not be used in a manner that was determinative of tracking students into classes designed for the mentally retarded. Larry P. v. Riles, 793 F.2d 969 (9th Cir. 1984). The court specifically found that the tests involved were designed and standardized based on an all-white population, and had not undergone a legislatively mandated validation process. In addition, the court ruled that predictive validity for a general population is not sufficient, since the rights of an individual student were at issue, and emphasized that had the tests not been treated as controlling but instead used as part of a thorough and individualized assessment by a school psychologist a different result would have been obtained. In September 1982, the judge in the Larry P. case, Federal District Judge Robert F. Peckham, relented in part in response to a lawsuit brought by black parents who wanted their children tested. The parents' attorney
, Mark Bredemeier, said his clients viewed the modern special education
offered by California
schools today as helpful to children with learning disabilities, not a dead-end track, as parents contended in the original 1979 Larry P. case.
A major area of controversy regarding the NCLB Act is whether achievement gaps are the result of "the soft bigotry of low expectations" or reflect real cognitive ability differences between groups. Because the Act includes warnings and funding consequences for schools which do not meet performance goals, whether disparate student performance is due primarily to environment (which is perceived to be under substantial school and teacher control) or to genetics (which is perceived to be far less malleable) has become a crucial issue.
Gifted education
and special education
programs aim to provide tailored instruction to students with especially high or low ability. Research in both civilian and military
training has demonstrated that bright
individuals learn 2-5 times faster than their less able peers.
(2002):
Before the late twentieth century, on the basis of studies showing widely varying validities for personnel selection techniques, the theory of "situational specificity" held sway. This principle holds that each organization, work setting and job is unique, requiring unique employee characteristics or skills, and that selection on any general ability yields little benefit. However, the development of statistical techniques such as meta-analysis
allowed large samples to be assembled from smaller studies, revealing that apparent validity variations reflected statistical artifacts. Re-analysis, and subsequent studies, have established that general mental ability (IQ) predicts job performance across all jobs. The validity of IQ varies most notably with job complexity: IQ matters little for simple jobs such as packing, and a great deal in complex jobs such as medicine.
These findings have major significance. For example, racial groups differ in average performance on mental ability tests: East Asians on average score higher than Whites, who on average score higher than Blacks (see Race and intelligence
for a more thorough discussion). Race-blind hiring on the basis of cognitive test score, among the best predictors of job performance, tends to lead to under-representation of some racial groups in favor of others, a phenomenon
called "adverse impact" or "disparate impact" in employment law. (In contrast, "disparate treatment" refers to deliberate discrimination
.)
In 1971, in the case Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
http://finduslaw.com/griggs_v_duke_power_co_1971_401_us_424_91_s_ct_849, the US Supreme Court handed down a seminal ruling which framed US public policy on adverse impact. Griggs concerned a company which had rejected a large number of Black applicants who either lacked a high-school education or performed poorly on a paper-and-pencil cognitive test. Referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964
http://finduslaw.com/civil_rights_act_of_1964_cra_title_vii_equal_employment_opportunities_42_us_code_chapter_21, the Court wrote,
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
generally prohibits employment practices that are unfair or discriminatory. One provision of Title VII, codified at 42 USC 2000e-2(h), specifically provides that it is not an "unlawful employment practice
for an employer to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin." This statute was interpreted by the Supreme Court in Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
, 401 US 424 (1971). In Griggs, the Court ruled that the reliance solely on a general IQ test that was not found to be specifically relevant to the job at issue was a discriminatory practice where it had a "disparate impact" on hiring. The Court gave considerable weight in its ruling to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
regulation interpreting Section 2002e-2(h)'s reference to a "professionally developed ability test" to mean "a test which fairly measures the knowledge or skills required by the particular job or class of jobs which the applicant seeks, or which fairly affords the employer a chance to measure the applicant's ability to perform a particular job or class of jobs." In other words, the use of any particular test would need to be shown to be relevant to the particular job or class of jobs at issue.
In 1989, the US Supreme Court decision in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio reduced the defendant's burden of proving business necessity to a burden of producing evidence of business justification. The Civil Rights Act of 1991
overturned that portion of the Wards Cove decision.
These decisions added a legal dimension to trade-offs between "efficiency and equity" referenced by Murphy. Though cognitive testing is generally inexpensive, reliable and valid, US employers risk expensive legal action if such testing produces disparate impact. In practice, companies have responded with a variety of strategies, from abandonment of cognitive testing to maintenance of racial hiring quotas. The latter derives from enforcement of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
's "four-fifths rule", which states that any group selection rate that is less than four-fifths (80%) of the highest rate will be regarded by Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact.
Attempts to formulate a test with reliability and validity equal to cognitive testing, but that does not produce disparate impact, have generally failed.
Microsoft
is known for using non-illegal tests that correlate with IQ tests as part of the interview process, weighing the results even more than experience in many cases.
. A recruit's cognitive test scores in part determine the professions available to him or her.
Problems in training low-IQ military recruits during World War II
led the US Congress to ban enlistment from the lowest 10% (below IQ 80) of the population.
Because people with IQs below 80 (the 10th percentile, Department of Defense
"Category V") are difficult to train, federal law bars their induction into the military. As of 2005, only 4 percent of the recruits were allowed to score as low as in the 16th to 30th percentile, a grouping known as "Category IV" on the U.S. Armed Forces' mental-aptitude exam. During the Vietnam War
, a program known as Project 100,000
was devised to recruit much more heavily from this category, but was eventually ended in 1971.
The U.S. military uses the Armed Forces Qualifying Test
(AFQT), as higher scores correlate with significant increases in effectiveness of both individual soldiers and units.
, the US Supreme Court outlawed the execution of mentally retarded criminals on the grounds that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment
, which is prohibited by the 8th Amendment
. The designation of mental retardation (or developmental disability
) typically requires a measured IQ below 70 or 75.
The Supreme Court of the United States
has utilized IQ test results during the sentencing
phase of some criminal proceedings. The Supreme Court case of Atkins v. Virginia
, decided June 20, 2002,
held that executions of mentally challenged criminals are "cruel and unusual punishment
s" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment
. In Atkins the court stated that
In overturning the Virginia Supreme Court's holding, the Atkins opinion stated that petitioner's IQ result of 59 was a factor making the imposition of capital punishment a violation of his eighth amendment rights. In the opinion's notes the court provided some of the facts relied upon when reaching their decision
Individuals with IQs below 70 have been essentially exempted from the death penalty in the U.S. since 2002, even though this cannot be definitely confirmed.
also uses IQ results when deciding disability
claims. In certain cases, IQ results alone are used (in those cases where the result shows a "full scale IQ of 59 or less") and in other cases IQ results are used along with other factors (for a "full scale IQ of 60 through 70") when deciding whether a claimant qualifies for Social Security Disability benefits.
research. Regardless of the source of the IQ gap, most educators agree that it must be addressed; they often advocate more equitable funding for education. An achievement gap
refers to the observed disparity in the performance of groups of students, primarily in those defined by race or ethnicity, in educational measures such as standardized test scores, grade point average, dropout
rates and course enrollment and completion rates.
Some proponents of a genetic interpretation of the IQ gap, such as Rushton and Jensen (2005a) and Gottfredson (2005b), have sometimes argued that their interpretation does not in itself demand any particular policy response: while a conservative/libertarian
commentator may feel the results justify, for example, reductions in affirmative action
, a liberal
commentator may argue from a Rawlsian
point of view (that genetic advantages are undeserved and unjust) for substantial affirmative action. Since all races have representatives at all levels of the IQ curve, this means any policy based on low IQ affects members of all races.
In the book Practical Ethics
, philosopher Peter Singer
wrote that:
Policies focused on geographical regions or nations may have disproportionate influences on certain racial groups and on cognitive development. Differences in health care, nutrition, regulation of environmental toxins, and geographic distribution of diseases and control strategies between the developing world and developed nations have all been subjects of policies or policy recommendations (see Health and intelligence
).
Intelligence
Intelligence has been defined in different ways, including the abilities for abstract thought, understanding, communication, reasoning, learning, planning, emotional intelligence and problem solving....
measures such as Intelligence Quotient
Intelligence quotient
An intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence. When modern IQ tests are constructed, the mean score within an age group is set to 100 and the standard deviation to 15...
(IQ) varies between individual
Individual
An individual is a person or any specific object or thing in a collection. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires. Being self expressive...
s and between certain groups, and that they correlate with socially important outcomes such as educational achievement
Achievement test
An achievement test is a test of developed skill or knowledge. The most common type of achievement test is a standardized test developed to measure skills and knowledge learned in a given grade level, usually through planned instruction, such as training or classroom instruction...
, employment
Employment
Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. An employee may be defined as:- Employee :...
, crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
, poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
and socioeconomic status
Socioeconomic status
Socioeconomic status is an economic and sociological combined total measure of a person's work experience and of an individual's or family’s economic and social position in relation to others, based on income, education, and occupation...
.
In the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, certain public policies
Public policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...
and law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
s regarding employment, military service, education and crime incorporate IQ or similar measurements. Internationally, certain public policies, such as improving nutrition and prohibiting neurotoxic toxins, have as one of their goals raising or preventing a decline in intelligence.
History
In the early 20th century, eugenicsEugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
legislation was passed in many US states which allowed, or encouraged, sterilization
Compulsory sterilization
Compulsory sterilization also known as forced sterilization programs are government policies which attempt to force people to undergo surgical sterilization...
of "feeble-minded
Feeble-minded
The term feeble-minded was used from the late nineteenth century in Great Britain, Europe and the United States to refer to a specific type of "mental deficiency". At the time, mental deficiency was an umbrella term, which encompassed all degrees of educational and social deficiency...
" individuals.
In the 1927 case Buck v. Bell
Buck v. Bell
Buck v. Bell, , was the United States Supreme Court ruling that upheld a statute instituting compulsory sterilization of the unfit, including the mentally retarded, "for the protection and health of the state." It was largely seen as an endorsement of negative eugenics—the attempt to improve...
, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1902 to 1932...
closed the 8-1 majority opinion upholding the sterilization of Carrie Buck
Carrie Buck
Carrie Buck was a plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court case, Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 , and was ordered to undergo compulsory sterilization for purportedly being "feeble-minded." The surgery was carried out while Buck was an inmate of the Virginia State Colony for Epileptics and...
, who along with her mother and daughter was labeled "feeble-minded", with the infamous phrase, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."
Eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
fell out of favor in the middle part of the century and is now widely denounced, though memories of the period continue to influence public policy
Public policy
Public policy as government action is generally the principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. In general, the foundation is the pertinent national and...
.
Education
Cognitive testCognitive test
Cognitive tests are assessments of the cognitive capabilities of humans and animals. Tests administered to humans include various forms of IQ tests; those administered to animals include the mirror test and the T maze test...
scores predict educational performance better than they predict any other outcome, and cognitive testing is pervasive in academics. Central policy issues concern the proper role of testing in assessing educational quality and in college admission; efforts to characterize and close the educational achievement gap
Achievement gap
Achievement gap refers to the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The achievement gap can be observed on a variety of measures, including standardized...
between racial and socioeconomic groups in the US; and the importance of cognitive ability differences in educational affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
.
The existence of educational achievement gap
Achievement gap
Achievement gap refers to the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The achievement gap can be observed on a variety of measures, including standardized...
s between racial and socioeconomic groups is broadly accepted; the source and stability of the gaps remain areas of active research and debate. The No Child Left Behind Act
No Child Left Behind Act
The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is a United States Act of Congress concerning the education of children in public schools.NCLB was originally proposed by the administration of George W. Bush immediately after he took office...
of 2001 (NCLB) is aimed explicitly at reducing achievement gaps by race. Federally defined formulas in NCLB call for elimination of all achievement disparity by 2014. Regardless of the source of the gap, most educators agree that it must be addressed. They often advocate equitable funding for education.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted state and federal statutes to require that IQ Tests not be used in a manner that was determinative of tracking students into classes designed for the mentally retarded. Larry P. v. Riles, 793 F.2d 969 (9th Cir. 1984). The court specifically found that the tests involved were designed and standardized based on an all-white population, and had not undergone a legislatively mandated validation process. In addition, the court ruled that predictive validity for a general population is not sufficient, since the rights of an individual student were at issue, and emphasized that had the tests not been treated as controlling but instead used as part of a thorough and individualized assessment by a school psychologist a different result would have been obtained. In September 1982, the judge in the Larry P. case, Federal District Judge Robert F. Peckham, relented in part in response to a lawsuit brought by black parents who wanted their children tested. The parents' attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, Mark Bredemeier, said his clients viewed the modern special education
Special education
Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
offered by California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
schools today as helpful to children with learning disabilities, not a dead-end track, as parents contended in the original 1979 Larry P. case.
A major area of controversy regarding the NCLB Act is whether achievement gaps are the result of "the soft bigotry of low expectations" or reflect real cognitive ability differences between groups. Because the Act includes warnings and funding consequences for schools which do not meet performance goals, whether disparate student performance is due primarily to environment (which is perceived to be under substantial school and teacher control) or to genetics (which is perceived to be far less malleable) has become a crucial issue.
Gifted education
Gifted education
Gifted education is a broad term for special practices, procedures and theories used in the education of children who have been identified as gifted or talented...
and special education
Special education
Special education is the education of students with special needs in a way that addresses the students' individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials,...
programs aim to provide tailored instruction to students with especially high or low ability. Research in both civilian and military
Military
A military is an organization authorized by its greater society to use lethal force, usually including use of weapons, in defending its country by combating actual or perceived threats. The military may have additional functions of use to its greater society, such as advancing a political agenda e.g...
training has demonstrated that bright
Bright
Bright may refer to:*Brightness, the perception of how dark or light a source of luminance is*Being bright , describing colloquially, something with intelligence...
individuals learn 2-5 times faster than their less able peers.
Employment
One summary of the relationship between employment policy and IQ testing is provided by MurphyMurphy
Murphy is an Anglicized version of two Irish surnames: Ó Murchadha/Ó Murchadh , and Mac Murchaidh/Mac Murchadh derived from the Irish personal name Murchadh, which meant "sea-warrior" or "sea-battler"...
(2002):
Cognitive ability tests represent the best single predictor of job performance, but also represent the predictor most likely to have substantial adverse impact on employment opportunities for members of several racial and ethnic minority groups. Debates over the use of these tests in selection often involve trade-offs between two criteria that are valued by decision makers—that is, efficiency and equity. Findings and methods from decision research can help us frame these trade-offs, but in most cases they cannot be avoided.
Before the late twentieth century, on the basis of studies showing widely varying validities for personnel selection techniques, the theory of "situational specificity" held sway. This principle holds that each organization, work setting and job is unique, requiring unique employee characteristics or skills, and that selection on any general ability yields little benefit. However, the development of statistical techniques such as meta-analysis
Meta-analysis
In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. In its simplest form, this is normally by identification of a common measure of effect size, for which a weighted average might be the output of a meta-analyses. Here the...
allowed large samples to be assembled from smaller studies, revealing that apparent validity variations reflected statistical artifacts. Re-analysis, and subsequent studies, have established that general mental ability (IQ) predicts job performance across all jobs. The validity of IQ varies most notably with job complexity: IQ matters little for simple jobs such as packing, and a great deal in complex jobs such as medicine.
These findings have major significance. For example, racial groups differ in average performance on mental ability tests: East Asians on average score higher than Whites, who on average score higher than Blacks (see Race and intelligence
Race and intelligence
The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of intelligence testing in the early 20th century...
for a more thorough discussion). Race-blind hiring on the basis of cognitive test score, among the best predictors of job performance, tends to lead to under-representation of some racial groups in favor of others, a phenomenon
Phenomenon
A phenomenon , plural phenomena, is any observable occurrence. Phenomena are often, but not always, understood as 'appearances' or 'experiences'...
called "adverse impact" or "disparate impact" in employment law. (In contrast, "disparate treatment" refers to deliberate discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
.)
In 1971, in the case Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co., , was a court case argued before the United States Supreme Court on December 14, 1970. It concerned employment discrimination and the disparate impact theory and was decided on March 8, 1971...
http://finduslaw.com/griggs_v_duke_power_co_1971_401_us_424_91_s_ct_849, the US Supreme Court handed down a seminal ruling which framed US public policy on adverse impact. Griggs concerned a company which had rejected a large number of Black applicants who either lacked a high-school education or performed poorly on a paper-and-pencil cognitive test. Referring to the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
http://finduslaw.com/civil_rights_act_of_1964_cra_title_vii_equal_employment_opportunities_42_us_code_chapter_21, the Court wrote,
The Act proscribes not only overt discrimination but also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation. The touchstoneTouchstoneA touchstone is a small tablet of dark stone such as fieldstone, slate, or lydite, used for assaying precious metal alloys. It has a finely grained surface on which soft metals leave a visible trace.-History:The touchstone was used in ancient Greece...
is business necessity. If an employment practice which operates to exclude Negroes cannot be shown to be related to job performance, the practice is prohibited.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
generally prohibits employment practices that are unfair or discriminatory. One provision of Title VII, codified at 42 USC 2000e-2(h), specifically provides that it is not an "unlawful employment practice
Employment discrimination
Employment discrimination is discrimination in hiring, promotion, job assignment, termination, and compensation. It includes various types of harassment....
for an employer to give and to act upon the results of any professionally developed ability test provided that such test, its administration or action upon the results is not designed, intended or used to discriminate because of race, color, religion, sex or national origin." This statute was interpreted by the Supreme Court in Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co.
Griggs v. Duke Power Co., , was a court case argued before the United States Supreme Court on December 14, 1970. It concerned employment discrimination and the disparate impact theory and was decided on March 8, 1971...
, 401 US 424 (1971). In Griggs, the Court ruled that the reliance solely on a general IQ test that was not found to be specifically relevant to the job at issue was a discriminatory practice where it had a "disparate impact" on hiring. The Court gave considerable weight in its ruling to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an independent federal law enforcement agency that enforces laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence,...
regulation interpreting Section 2002e-2(h)'s reference to a "professionally developed ability test" to mean "a test which fairly measures the knowledge or skills required by the particular job or class of jobs which the applicant seeks, or which fairly affords the employer a chance to measure the applicant's ability to perform a particular job or class of jobs." In other words, the use of any particular test would need to be shown to be relevant to the particular job or class of jobs at issue.
In 1989, the US Supreme Court decision in Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Antonio reduced the defendant's burden of proving business necessity to a burden of producing evidence of business justification. The Civil Rights Act of 1991
Civil Rights Act of 1991
The Civil Rights Act of 1991 is a United States statute that was passed in response to a series of United States Supreme Court decisions which limited the rights of employees who had sued their employers for discrimination...
overturned that portion of the Wards Cove decision.
These decisions added a legal dimension to trade-offs between "efficiency and equity" referenced by Murphy. Though cognitive testing is generally inexpensive, reliable and valid, US employers risk expensive legal action if such testing produces disparate impact. In practice, companies have responded with a variety of strategies, from abandonment of cognitive testing to maintenance of racial hiring quotas. The latter derives from enforcement of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is an independent federal law enforcement agency that enforces laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC investigates discrimination complaints based on an individual's race, color, national origin, religion, sex, age, perceived intelligence,...
's "four-fifths rule", which states that any group selection rate that is less than four-fifths (80%) of the highest rate will be regarded by Federal enforcement agencies as evidence of adverse impact.
Attempts to formulate a test with reliability and validity equal to cognitive testing, but that does not produce disparate impact, have generally failed.
Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
is known for using non-illegal tests that correlate with IQ tests as part of the interview process, weighing the results even more than experience in many cases.
Military service
All US military recruits take the Armed Forces Qualification Test, an intelligence test that strongly measures the general intelligence factorGeneral intelligence factor
The g factor, where g stands for general intelligence, is a statistic used in psychometrics to model the mental ability underlying results of various tests of cognitive ability...
. A recruit's cognitive test scores in part determine the professions available to him or her.
Problems in training low-IQ military recruits during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
led the US Congress to ban enlistment from the lowest 10% (below IQ 80) of the population.
Because people with IQs below 80 (the 10th percentile, Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
"Category V") are difficult to train, federal law bars their induction into the military. As of 2005, only 4 percent of the recruits were allowed to score as low as in the 16th to 30th percentile, a grouping known as "Category IV" on the U.S. Armed Forces' mental-aptitude exam. During the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, a program known as Project 100,000
Project 100,000
Project 100,000 was a 1960s program by the United States Department of Defense to recruit soldiers that would previously have been below military mental or medical standards...
was devised to recruit much more heavily from this category, but was eventually ended in 1971.
The U.S. military uses the Armed Forces Qualifying Test
Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery
The Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery is a multiple choice test, administered by the United States Military Entrance Processing Command, used to determine qualification for enlistment in the United States armed forces...
(AFQT), as higher scores correlate with significant increases in effectiveness of both individual soldiers and units.
Crime
In its 2002 ruling on the case Atkins v. VirginiaAtkins v. Virginia
Atkins v. Virginia, , is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6-3 that executing the mentally retarded violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments.-The case:...
, the US Supreme Court outlawed the execution of mentally retarded criminals on the grounds that it constituted cruel and unusual punishment
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of something negative or unpleasant on a person or animal in response to behavior deemed wrong by an individual or group....
, which is prohibited by the 8th Amendment
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment's Cruel and Unusual...
. The designation of mental retardation (or developmental disability
Developmental disability
Developmental disability is a term used in the United States and Canada to describe lifelong disabilities attributable to mental or physical impairments, manifested prior to age 18. It is not synonymous with "developmental delay" which is often a consequence of a temporary illness or trauma during...
) typically requires a measured IQ below 70 or 75.
The Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
has utilized IQ test results during the sentencing
Sentence (law)
In law, a sentence forms the final explicit act of a judge-ruled process, and also the symbolic principal act connected to his function. The sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and/or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime...
phase of some criminal proceedings. The Supreme Court case of Atkins v. Virginia
Atkins v. Virginia
Atkins v. Virginia, , is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 6-3 that executing the mentally retarded violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishments.-The case:...
, decided June 20, 2002,
held that executions of mentally challenged criminals are "cruel and unusual punishment
Cruel and unusual punishment
Cruel and unusual punishment is a phrase describing criminal punishment which is considered unacceptable due to the suffering or humiliation it inflicts on the condemned person...
s" prohibited by the Eighth Amendment
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the United States Bill of Rights which prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines or cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment's Cruel and Unusual...
. In Atkins the court stated that
- "…[I]t appears that even among those States that regularly execute offenders and that have no prohibition with regard to the mentally retarded, only five have executed offenders possessing a known IQ less than 70 since we decided Penry. The practice, therefore, has become truly unusual, and it is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it."
In overturning the Virginia Supreme Court's holding, the Atkins opinion stated that petitioner's IQ result of 59 was a factor making the imposition of capital punishment a violation of his eighth amendment rights. In the opinion's notes the court provided some of the facts relied upon when reaching their decision
Individuals with IQs below 70 have been essentially exempted from the death penalty in the U.S. since 2002, even though this cannot be definitely confirmed.
Social security
The Social Security AdministrationSocial Security Administration
The United States Social Security Administration is an independent agency of the United States federal government that administers Social Security, a social insurance program consisting of retirement, disability, and survivors' benefits...
also uses IQ results when deciding disability
Disability
A disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
claims. In certain cases, IQ results alone are used (in those cases where the result shows a "full scale IQ of 59 or less") and in other cases IQ results are used along with other factors (for a "full scale IQ of 60 through 70") when deciding whether a claimant qualifies for Social Security Disability benefits.
Race issues
Public policy implications of IQ and race research are one of the greatest sources of controversy surrounding race and intelligenceRace and intelligence
The connection between race and intelligence has been a subject of debate in both popular science and academic research since the inception of intelligence testing in the early 20th century...
research. Regardless of the source of the IQ gap, most educators agree that it must be addressed; they often advocate more equitable funding for education. An achievement gap
Achievement gap
Achievement gap refers to the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. The achievement gap can be observed on a variety of measures, including standardized...
refers to the observed disparity in the performance of groups of students, primarily in those defined by race or ethnicity, in educational measures such as standardized test scores, grade point average, dropout
Dropping out
Dropping out means leaving a group for either practical reasons, necessities or disillusionment with the system from which the individual in question leaves....
rates and course enrollment and completion rates.
Some proponents of a genetic interpretation of the IQ gap, such as Rushton and Jensen (2005a) and Gottfredson (2005b), have sometimes argued that their interpretation does not in itself demand any particular policy response: while a conservative/libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
commentator may feel the results justify, for example, reductions in affirmative action
Affirmative action
Affirmative action refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group, usually as a means to counter the effects of a history of discrimination.-Origins:The term...
, a liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
commentator may argue from a Rawlsian
John Rawls
John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....
point of view (that genetic advantages are undeserved and unjust) for substantial affirmative action. Since all races have representatives at all levels of the IQ curve, this means any policy based on low IQ affects members of all races.
In the book Practical Ethics
Practical Ethics
The book Practical Ethics is an introduction to applied ethics written by modern bioethical philosopher Peter Singer. It was originally published in 1979 and has since been translated into a number of languages. The book caused outrage in Germany, Austria and Switzerland...
, philosopher Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
wrote that:
Let us suppose that the genetic hypothesis turns out to be correct... I believe that the implications of this supposition are less drastic than they are often supposed to be...
First, the genetic hypothesis does not imply that we should reduce our efforts to overcome other causes of inequality between people... Perhaps we should put special efforts into helping those who start from a position of disadvantage, so that we end with a more egalitarian result.
Second, the fact that the average IQ of one racial group is a few points higher than that of another does not allow anyone to say that all members of the higher IQ group have higher IQs... The point is that these figures are averages and say nothing about individuals...
The third reason... is simply that, as we saw earlier, the principle of equality is not based on any actual equality that all people share. I have argued that the only defensible basis for the principle of equality is equal consideration of interests... Equal status does not depend on intelligence. Racists who maintain the contrary are in peril of being forced to kneel before the next genius they encounter.
Policies focused on geographical regions or nations may have disproportionate influences on certain racial groups and on cognitive development. Differences in health care, nutrition, regulation of environmental toxins, and geographic distribution of diseases and control strategies between the developing world and developed nations have all been subjects of policies or policy recommendations (see Health and intelligence
Health and intelligence
Health can affect intelligence in various ways. This is one of the most important factors in understanding the origins of human group differences in IQ test scores and other measures of cognitive ability...
).