Sotomayor WRONG: Ricci overturned
Posted by Publius Right
on Jun 29 2009 Filed under Politics.
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“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” – Judge Sonia Sotomayor
SCOTUS released their opinion today on Ricci v. New Haven. They overturned the case in it’s totality – Kennedy wrote it 5-4 decision. Here’s Sotomayor’s opinion. The SCOTUS opinion is here. In part – “city’s fear of litigation cannot justify the refusal to apply the test.”
The central holding: “All the evidence demonstrates that the City rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white.Without some other justification, this express, race-based decision-making is prohibited.”
Here’s the quick overview and context of the case before the SCOTUS decision:
Judge Sotomayor’s most high-profile case, Ricci v. DeStefano, concerns white firefighters in New Haven who were denied promotions after an examination yielded no black firefighters eligible for advancement. Joining an unsigned opinion of a three-judge panel of the appeals court, Judge Sotomayor upheld the rejection of a lawsuit by white firefighters, one of them Hispanic, claiming race discrimination and, as part of the full appeals court, she declined to rehear the case. The Supreme Court is currently considering the case, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is the likely swing vote. Among the questions in the case is whether the law should treat diversity in the work force differently from diversity in the classroom. Judge Sotomayor dissented in part in an earlier case, Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education, finding that race discrimination had occurred when a school demoted a black child from first grade to kindergarten.
SCOTUSBlog has an older writing on the implications of this decision. Their money quote:
I agree with Tom’s assessment that Judge Sotomayor’s detractors will have a hard time making the case that her work is anything but thorough and thoughtful, based on a reading of the bulk of her opinions. This may, however, make the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci all the more important in the coming debate. The Court’s review of the decision will provide those involved in the public debate with a seemingly objective measure of the quality of her work. (Emphasis added.)
This case goes to the heart of the issues surrounding Sotomayor – her membership (recently ended) in an all-female club, her thrice-stated opinion that Latina women can make more wise decisions than white men, and whatever else is yet to surface on her ethnic and gender superiority model of both living and judging.
UPDATE: Some selected quotes from Kennedy’s majority opinion, an opinion with which Sotomayor
disagrees.
Whatever the City’s ultimate aim — however well intentioned or benevolent it might have seemed—the City made its employment decision because of race. The City rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white.
So if a city is going to use a test, they don’t get to toss the results just because the preferred racial group doesn’t perform well. (p.24-25)
Examinations like those administered by the City create legitimate expectations on the part of those who took the tests. As is the case with any promotion exam, some of the firefighters here invested substantial time, money, and personal commitment in preparing for the tests. Employment tests can be an important part of a neutral selection system that safeguards against the very racial animosities Title VII was intended to prevent. Here, however, the firefighters saw their efforts invalidated by the City in sole reliance upon race-based statistics. . . .
Nor do we question an employer’s affirmative efforts to ensure that all groups have a fair opportunity to apply for promotions and to participate in the process by which promotions will be made. But once that process has been established and employers have made clear their selection criteria, they may not then invalidate the test results, thus upsetting an employee’s legitimate expectation not to be judged on the basis of race. Doing so, absent a strong basis in evidence of an impermissible disparate impact, amounts to the sort of racial preference that Congress has disclaimed, §2000e–2(j), and is antithetical to the notion of a workplace where individuals are guaranteed equal opportunity regardless of race.
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