I’m reading many articles from various sources about the Ricci case just decided by SCOTUS. And this sentence in Richard Benjamin’s article on HuffPost jumped out at me:

Frank Ricci just wanted to ace his firefighters exam. He rallied to overcome dyslexia and “several learning disabilities.” He spent more than $1,000 to purchase study materials and to pay his neighbor to read them on tape to him.

Um, am I being insensitive, or am I validly concerned that a person who has such great difficulty with the simple tasks of reading and comprehension is in a position on which people’s lives and property depend?

A firefighter’s job includes making crucial decisions in emergencies by assessing situations as quickly and thoroughly as possible.  The firefighter must have mastery of an arsenal of skills to make these assessments.  Such as the ability to read warning and biohazard signs, and access/exit/entrance diagrams, possibly blueprints.

I’m reminded of The Great Welch Hall Fire debate during my student years at UT Austin.  My department’s home, Waggoner Hall, was right next door to Welch Hall, one of the great science-devoted buildings on campus.  Welch was the home of numerous science labs which stored and employed hazardous materials.  The fire department was not infrequently called to Welch due to fires and spills in those labs.  At a certain point, the fire chief threatened to cease responding to calls to Welch because there was no inventory of potentially hazardous materials posted outside the labs; the firefighters didn’t know what they were exposed to until they went inside the labs, possibly too late to prevent harm to said firefighters or to make decisions on the appropriate techniques to deal with the hazard.

Ferrari suggested that “He’s not going to need to read those, because those typically have symbols to designate what they are, as they have to be universal. Not everyone working in those buildings/places will be English speakers/readers.”

Which is a valid point but if Ricci has “numerous learning disabilities” in addition to dyslexia, how can we be confident that he would have any better comprehension of those symbols than he would of the words they represent? Granted that as Ferrari pointed out, “dyslexia is a very specific learning disorder…I don’t believe we’re talking developmentally challenged here.” But he didn’t just have dyslexia, he had “numerous learning disabilities”.

I concede that I do not know what those numerous learning disabilities are and I’m not saying Ricci did not deserve promotion, as job performance and leadership should weigh heavily (qualities that certainly can’t be measured by a written exam).  However, that highlights my concern — what other learning disabilities?  How do those disabilities impact the skills and knowledge required to fight a fire, evacuate trapped people and effectively support and protect his fellow firefighters and citizens, either as a firefighter or as a commanding officer (the position to which he aspired by taking the exam)?

I’ve always believed that firefighters and police and emergency medical personnel should be held to a significantly higher standard — because they literally hold lives in their hands, because so many of their decisions must be made immediately. So I have to wonder how well an emergency situation can be assessed and effective leadership provided by a person so impacted by learning disability that they had to hire a third party to record their study materials, presumably because their own reading ability is not competent to comprehend and/or retain the material.