DEAL WITH IT 2.0 :
Robert Jordan is the plaintiff from the landmark 1996 legal case Jordan v. City of New London. He was rejected from becoming a police officer in New London, Connecticut, after scoring a 33 on the Wonderlic Personnel Test (the equivalent of an IQ of 125), which the department deemed too high.The DetailsThe Applicant: Robert Jordan was a 46-year-old college graduate and former law student.The Test & Score: He took the standardized Wonderlic test—a cognitive ability and problem-solving exam. He scored a 33 out of 50, which equates to an IQ of 125.The Department's Policy: The New London Police Department had a long-standing policy to only interview applicants who scored between 20 and 27.The Rationale: The city argued that candidates who scored "too high" would get bored with mundane police routines and quit shortly after the department invested expensive academy training in them (estimated at $25,000 per recruit).The LawsuitThe Claim: Jordan sued the city in federal court, alleging that the policy violated his constitutional rights and constituted discrimination based on intelligence.The Ruling: The federal district court, and later the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York, ruled against Jordan.The Legal Logic: The court did not necessarily rule that the city's policy was smart or wise. Instead, it ruled that the city was not violating equal protection laws because they applied the exact same maximum IQ standard evenly to all applicants—regardless of race, gender, or class. The courts acknowledged the city’s rationale of reducing job turnover as legally valid.After exhausting his appeals, Jordan gave up his fight to become a New London cop and took a position as a prison guard, noting that his new job required exactly the kind of critical thinking the police department had deemed
2026-06-05 12:00:27