But if a closclv watched California courtrndecision is sustained on appeal, racialrnbanders will be beating the drums bigtime.rnIn a 79-page (!) decision, U.S. DistrictrnJudge Robert Peckham ruled thatrnSan Francisco could depart from a merit-rnbased, top-down system of promotingrncops to sergeant in favor of hiring insteadrnfrom within a narrow band of lowerrnscorers. The judge noted enthusiasticallvrnthat banding “decreases adversernimpact bv creating the possibility thatrnminorities within the band who otherwisernwould not have been selected, willrnbe promoted.” And he breathlessly obser’rned that “the percentage of qualifiedrnminoritv candidates available for promotionrnwill increase the farther downrnthe list the Citv mo’es to make its appointments”!rnWhich raises the limbostickrncjuestion: how looooow will thevrngo? Exacth how far down are egalitariansrnwilling to dri’e considerations of individualrnmerit—let alone considerationsrnof public health and safety—in pursuitrnof statistical ec[uality?rnBanding’s proponents make the audaciousrnclaim that the science of probabilityrnlegitimizes their tcchnic]ucs. Basicalh,rnthe’ argue that because tests arernnot perfect and because individualrnscores mav fluctuate each time a test isrnadministered, there is a range of “statisticalrncomparability” in which lowerrnscorers may be leapfrogged over higherrnscorers. If scores run from 80 to 90rnwithin a band, a score of 80 is deemedrnjust as good as a score of 90. (That mayrnbe true in very specific instances—a testrntaker had a bad dav, say. But averagedrnover thousands of job applications, higherrnscores have to be better than lowerrnscores, if the tests arc valid. And thernnondiscriminatory wav to go is with thernhigh scorers.)rnI’ll confess that much of this arcanernpschometrics passes o’er my head, butrnit is good enough for me that the Uni-rnersit’ of Iowa’s Frank Schmidt, one ofrnthe nation’s foremost testing gurus, hasrnpronounced banding to be just as muchrna crock as race-norming. It utterly lacksrnscientific justification, he has written.rnWell, you ask, didn’t Congress intendrnSection 106 to bury such perniciousrnsubterfuges as banding along withrnrace-norming? I la! Who knows whatrnCongress intended, least of all that decrepitrninstitution itself. The San Franciscornease is on appeal to the 9th U. S.rnCircuit Court of Appeals, wliere judgesrnare again asked to decide what theyrnthink Congress thought.rnThe city’s police association arguesrnthat banding is “nothing but a thinlyrndisguised (illegal) quota system.” However,rnthe ubiquitous Lawyers Committeernfor Human Rights shoots back that Sectionrn106 only forbade employers fromrn”adjusting” or “altering” the results ofrnjob tests. “Congress in no wav intendedrnto bar employers from banding testrnscores for affirmative action purposes,”rnsay these rightsters/shvsters. Indeed,rnthey add, scores are not tinkered withrnat all, and “the proposed bandingrnmethod is completely blind to race. Itrndocs no more than to determine whichrnactual scores are statistically equivalent,rnthus eliminating the potential for statisticalrnerror of measurement.” This is anrnoutrageous stretch, given that the bandsrnarc selected precisely because of theirrnracial composition.rnFinally, then, to the question EdrnKoch asked me after receiving his replyrnfrom Sccrctar Martin: “Do you believernthat the circle is now closed and thatrnrace-norming no longer exists?” Answer:rnno. Race-norming by anv other namernis still race-norming. And one of itsrnmost perverse results is that strivcrs andrnachievers of all races may be bypassedrnin favor of the mediocre. With diversity-rnbased bands sliding ever southward,rnno longer will it pay to shoot for excellence.rn—Robert G. HollandrnHUSBANDS AND WIVES is a slightrnbut charming film, and, had it not beenrnfor the inability of the press to distinguishrnbetween life and art, it would havernopened in the usual eight theaters to reviewsrnthat were mildlv favorable if notrnc]uite ecstatic. Husbands and Wives isrnnot a Shadows and Fog disaster, but neitherrnis it a Manhattan or a StardustrnMemories triumph. A pleasing, ruefulrnlittle picture, it suffers from several billionrndollars worth of publicity, Woodyrnand Mia having been on more magazinerncovers in recent months than Elvis, Bigfoot,rnFcrgie, and Di combined. Thisrnsmall bijou is on eight hundred screens,rnwhere people will be watching it whorndon’t recognize Benno Schmidt (he hasrna nice bit part to which he seems betterrnsuited than the presidency of Yiilc) andrnwho can’t spot Nora Rphron or BrucernJay Friedman, who also appear. Whatrnthev are all hut to see is the breakup, thernexchange of nasty words between Miarnand Woody that are true and real. Asrnif fictions were false and the only reliablerntruths were those of correspondence.rnAs if the headlines made clearerrnthe rage, hurt, and self-mocking humorrnthat Allen has been showing us in twentyrnpictures now.rnI suppose there may be people whornin museums get off on how ugly Picassorncould make this or that wife or mistressrnin the paintings he did of them just beforerntheir separation. (And, indeed,rnAllen has never before let Farrow lookrnas bedraggled, as dismal, as unattractivernas she does in what is presumably herrnfarewell performance in his continuingrntroupe.) But that is not a useful comparison,rnbecause art, and especially highrnart, is exclusionary and tries to keep thernmob at a distance. Movies, in economicrnas well as historic fact, are a mass art:rnthe more bodies the’ can get into thosernseats, the better the producers like it. Itrnis, as Steve Martin says in ‘The jerk, “arnprofit thing.”rnBut the mass-distribution environmentrnis hardly a proper one for self-consciousrnexpositions of desire and frustrationrnin sexual, social, and artistic terms.rnAllen’s persona, which remains more orrnless constant through most of hisrnmovies, is intimidated by over-achievingrnintellectual women and drawn tornyounger, less threatening females ofrnwhom he is not frightened but whomrnhe doesn’t have quite the nerve to pursuernwholeheartedly. In a revealing scenernin Husbands and Wives, Juliette I ,cwis, arnColumbia student, has the effrontery torncriticize a novel by her teacher GabernRoth (that’s Woody), and he calls her arn”twenty-vear-old twit.” But that’s preciselyrnwhat he adores about her—thatrnher criticism is dismissablc and thereforernnot wounding.rnThe film’s main titles run under arnmournful rendition of Cole Porter’srn”What Is This Thing Called Love?” andrnthen the action opens with Roth watchingrntelevision as a commentator citesrnEinstein’s remark about how Godrndoesn’t play dice with the universe, tornwhich Roth answers, “No, he plays hidernand seek.”rnIntelligent, elegant, and attitudinized.rnHusbands and Wives operates at a levelrnof sophistication that is stratospheric inrnAmerican movie-making. In the theaterrnwhere I saw the film, the first real laughrncame when Mia asks Woody, “Do yourneer hide things from mc?” Not thernlANUARY 1993/7rnrnrn