The trick is to say you're prejudiced against all races.

It doesn't seem like they can quite get their story straight here. Black firefighters are upset because they aren't passing written exams as often as other races and therefore not getting as many promotions. First they claim that white firemen were given the questions ahead of time, basically claim intentional racist motives. I guess they didn't want to suggest the the black firemen just couldn't pass the test. The article doesn't go on the specify anything about those allegations, presumably there was no evidence of them, or it would have been mentioned. So now the federal government has stepped in alleging that the exams have "resulted in a disparate impact upon black candidates." So the exams are racists not because someone is helping white people pass them, but because black fireman simply can't pass them. Whatever happened to judging a man based on the content of his character and not the color of his skin. Whether or not this exam (or any other exam for that matter, SAT, LSAT, university finals, etc.) is an accurate judge of abilities is an open question, but the exam does not discriminate based on someone's skin color. A world free from racism means a world of equal opportunities, not a world of equal results. Black firemen don't have the right to an equal percentage of promotions just because of their skin color. By that logic i could argue the NBA is the most racist organization in the world. Their rules of play have a disparately negative effect on white players and anyone who claims otherwise is a racist. We simply have to adjust the rules of the game so the strengths of white players are more actively represented and their strengths are less actively demonstrated. That's what the firemen are doing they are claiming because they aren't as good at demonstrating competency under this system the system needs to be changed to reflect their strengths and not their weaknesses. If you want to argue that judging a fireman's competency for promotion by exam is foolish, feel free to make that argument, just don't bring race into it. Race has nothing to do with whether or not an exam is an accurate barometer.