The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division has been pressuring police forces across the country to abandon "cognitive" entrance exams, which test for basic reading, writing, memory and reasoning skills.

The Department argues that such tests are illegal because they exclude too many minorities from police ranks. Cognitive test supporters say the tests are needed to assure that officers have the mental skills to make quick decisions about everything from the constitutional rights of suspects to the use of deadly force.

• As of 1993, some 83 percent of large city and county police forces used cognitive tests in hiring -- but that may be about to change.

• After years of pressure from the Justice Department, Nassau County, N.Y., agreed to replace its cognitive-based entrance exam with one that was based on personality -- in which applicants had to score only as well as the bottom 1 (one) percent of current police officers on a reading exam.

• Critics charge that the whole effort to achieve "diversity" in police ranks is leading to such absurdities as recruiting on street corners in the poorest neighborhoods, rather than going to the top black colleges for new people.

Justice Department bureaucrats also hopped on officials in Suffolk County, N.Y., claiming that its test allowed too few minorities to get police jobs. It charged that if the test were race neutral, top scorers would have included 249 more new blacks, 170 more Hispanics and 447 fewer whites.

Police officials in other areas of the country are also feeling heat from Justice's civil rights crusaders, critics report.

• The Louisiana State Police was forced to water-down its cognitive tests to the point where that portion was "minuscule," leaving the test "no better than chance," according to experts.

• However the city of Torrance, Cal., fought back after being sued by Justice for not abandoning its cognitive tests and refusing demands that it set up a multi-million dollar fund to compensate alleged victims of its test -- with the result that it won its case, but Justice is now appealing the decision.

One test development company points out that trials are often decided on the basis of the arresting officer's written report or oral testimony, which is "pure, unadulterated mental ability."

Source: David A. Price, "Dumbing Down the Police Force," Investor's Business Daily, June 13, 1997.