Ban Voided on IQ Tests for Black Pupils : Education: Judge says his 1986 ruling put students with learning disabilities at a disadvantage. An aide to Honig calls the exams useless.

A federal judge has lifted a statewide ban on IQ testing of black children on the grounds that it was unfair to a group of black children and parents who wanted the tests.

U.S. District Judge Robert Peckham withdrew his 1986 order, saying that it failed to consider the interests of blacks with learning disabilities whose parents might want the tests as an aid in their placement. His decision was made public Tuesday.

“This is a tremendous victory for civil liberties,” said Manuel Klausner, a lawyer for the black parents who sued in 1988 to lift the ban, which had prompted most urban districts in California to stop using the tests for all children.

In the districts that still offer IQ tests for evaluation of learning disabilities, Klausner said, “there will no longer be a paternalistic singling-out of our clients based on their race, as if blacks were unable to make decisions that affect their own situation.”

Last year, Peckham issued an order allowing IQ tests for three children after a small group of black parents challenged the ban. His new ruling nullifies the 1986 decision and appears to allow any child to be tested. Peckham said further hearings would determine whether a ban was needed to keep blacks from being misplaced in “dead-end” programs for the retarded.

The ban had prompted most urban districts in California to stop using IQ tests for any children, said Armando Menocal, a civil rights lawyer who sought the ban. A top aide to state school Supt. Bill Honig called the tests biased and useless in assessing educational needs.

IQ tests have a built-in cultural bias and are not a valid measure of a child’s ability, said Shirley Thornton, Honig’s deputy superintendent for specialized programs. She said the state’s guidelines discourage local districts from using the tests for placement of any children.

“If I want to know if you can read, I give you something to read,” Thornton said.

Menocal, of the San Francisco law firm Public Advocates, said blacks are still overrepresented in the various special education programs that have replaced classes for the mentally retarded. But he said the numbers were far more skewed before Peckham banned IQ tests.

“One of the likely results (of the ruling) is that many more school psychologists will now resume using IQ tests,” Menocal said. He said the tests have been widely discredited among educational scholars but are favored by many school psychologists and administrators because they are cheaper and easier than observing and analyzing a student’s problems.

Klausner called the claim of racial bias “widely overblown and sensationalized,” and said an IQ test, administered after parental consent, can be a useful tool for evaluation and placement.

Peckham first ruled in 1979 that standardized IQ tests had a built-in bias and prohibited their use statewide for diagnosing blacks as retarded or placing them in special classes for the retarded.