Restoring Merit: Why the Civil Service Exam Must Return

The history of the civil service exam is a history of American governance striving for fairness and competence—only to see those principles discarded for political expediency. The federal civil service exam, established in 1883 by the Pendleton Act, was designed to ensure that government jobs were awarded based on merit rather than patronage. The goal was simple yet profound: to build a professional bureaucracy insulated from corruption, incompetence, and political favoritism. For nearly a century, this system worked, helping to create an efficient and reliable federal workforce. However, in the late 20th century, the civil service exam was dismantled—not due to inefficiency or irrelevance, but under the pretense of combating racial disparities in hiring.

In the 1970s, the government began retreating from meritocratic hiring in response to political and legal challenges. The Professional and Administrative Career Examination (PACE), a replacement for earlier civil service tests, became the subject of legal scrutiny due to its alleged "disparate impact" on minority candidates. The argument, made in the landmark case Luevano v. Campbell, was that racial groups performed at different levels on these exams, thereby making the exams inherently discriminatory. This claim ignored the fact that the tests were designed to measure ability, not racial identity. The response from the Carter administration was not to defend the principle of merit-based hiring but to capitulate, eliminating PACE and, effectively, any general testing requirement for most federal positions. The settlement created hiring programs aimed at increasing diversity, prioritizing racial balancing over objective standards of competency.

The shift away from exams was not a minor administrative tweak; it was a fundamental transformation of federal hiring. With the elimination of standardized testing, agencies turned to subjective hiring criteria, such as resumes, interviews, and essays—tools that, while valuable, lack the objectivity of standardized exams. This new system invited inconsistency, favoritism, and, ironically, the very biases that civil service exams were designed to eliminate.

This trend continued into the 21st century, culminating in President Barack Obama’s 2010 directive further weakening merit-based hiring. Under the guise of modernizing the hiring process, Obama’s executive order abolished agency-by-agency written essays, arguing that they discouraged applicants from underrepresented groups who typically lack fluent writing abilities. These essays, which required applicants to demonstrate knowledge, critical thinking, and written communication skills, were deemed too burdensome because they disproportionately eliminated minority candidates. In effect, the argument was that writing proficiency itself was an unfair barrier to employment—an extraordinary concession that effectively devalued essential skills in favor of demographic balancing.

If the United States is to maintain a competent, professional, and accountable federal workforce, it must return to a system of meritocratic hiring. This means reinstating a rigorous civil service exam that assesses the competencies necessary for effective governance. Critics argue that standardized testing has a disparate racial impact, but this argument conflates correlation with causation. The fact that different demographic groups perform differently on a given test does not mean the test itself is discriminatory. Rather than dismantling exams, policymakers should focus on improving education and preparation programs to ensure that all candidates, regardless of race, have the opportunity to succeed on a fair and objective test.

Furthermore, eliminating written assessments does not eliminate evaluation—it merely shifts it to less accountable and more subjective mechanisms. If agencies do not evaluate writing ability through structured exams, they will still assess it informally during interviews or based on resumes. This shift does not remove barriers; it merely makes them less transparent and more susceptible to manipulation. A return to civil service exams would restore a clear, uniform standard, ensuring that all candidates are judged by the same objective criteria.

The federal government is legally bound to hire based on merit. The current system of racial quotas and subjective hiring practices violates this principle and undermines public confidence in government institutions. The restoration of a standardized civil service exam, complete with essay components, would reaffirm the fundamental American value that government positions should be earned through ability, not political expediency or racial balancing. If we are serious about preserving the integrity of our civil service, we must demand a return to hiring practices that prioritize competence over ideology. President Trump must take decisive action to restore the civil service exam and require every current federal employee to take the same exam. This will ensure that every government worker meets the same high standard, reaffirming that public service is a privilege earned through merit, not an entitlement granted through political maneuvering.

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