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  1. #1
    Senior Member fedupinwaukegan's Avatar
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    Supreme Ct. over-rules Sotomoyers White Firefighters ruling

    Court Rules for White Firefighters Over Promotions

    By MARK SHERMAN
    The Associated Press
    Monday, June 29, 2009 11:19 AM

    WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

    New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

    The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

    "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

    In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

    Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg's dissent, which she read aloud in court Monday.

    Kennedy's opinion made only passing reference to the work of Sotomayor and the other two judges on the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who upheld a lower court ruling in favor of New Haven.

    But the appellate judges have been criticized for producing a cursory opinion that failed to deal with "indisputably complex and far from well-settled" questions, in the words of another appeals court judge, Sotomayor mentor Jose Cabranes.

    "This perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal," Cabranes said, in a dissent from the full 2nd Circuit's decision not to hear the case.

    Sen. Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Sotomayor should not be criticized for the unsigned appeals court decision, which he asserted she did not write. "Judge Sotomayor and the lower court panel did what judges are supposed to do, they followed precedent," said the Vermont Democrat who will preside over Sotomayor's confirmation hearings next month.

    Leahy also called the high court decision "cramped" and wrong.

    In New Haven, Nancy Ricci, whose son, Frank, was the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit, carried a large cake decorated with red, white and blue frosting into the law office where the firefighters were celebrating their victory.

    Ricci's father, Jim Ricci said the ruling is a victory for firefighters across the country. "Now we're going to get the best managers as far as firefighters go. That's really important," Ricci said.

    Monday's decision has its origins in New Haven's need to fill vacancies for lieutenants and captains in its fire department. It hired an outside firm to design a test, which was given to 77 candidates for lieutenant and 41 candidates for captain.

    Fifty six firefighters passed the exams, including 41 whites, 22 blacks and 18 Hispanics. But of those, only 17 whites and two Hispanics could expect promotion.

    The city eventually decided not to use the exam to determine promotions. It said it acted because it might have been vulnerable to claims that the exam had a "disparate impact" on minorities in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    The white firefighters said the decision violated the same law's prohibition on intentional discrimination.

    Kennedy said an employer needs a "strong basis in evidence" to believe it will be held liable in a disparate impact lawsuit. New Haven had no such evidence, he said.

    The city declined to validate the test after it was given, a step that could have identified flaws or determined that there were no serious problems with it. In addition, city officials could not say what was wrong with the test, other than the racially skewed results.

    "The city could be liable for disparate-impact discrimination only if the examinations were not job related" or the city failed to use a less discriminatory alternative, Kennedy said. "We conclude that there is no strong basis in evidence to establish that the test was deficient in either of these respects."

    But Ginsburg said the court should have assessed "the starkly disparate results" of the exams against the backdrop of historical and ongoing inequality in the New Haven fire department. As of 2003, she said, only one of the city's 21 fire captains was African-American.

    Until this decision, Ginsburg said, the civil rights law's prohibitions on intentional discrimination and disparate impact were complementary, both aimed at ending workplace discrimination.

    "Today's decision sets these paired directives at odds," she said.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 08_pf.html
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  2. #2
    Senior Member fedupinwaukegan's Avatar
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    Court Rules for White Firefighters in Discrimination Case

    Monday, June 29, 2009

    WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a group of white firefighters in Connecticut were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision endorsed by high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

    The 5-4 ruling poses a potential complication to Sotomayor's nomination, with confirmation hearings set to start in July. Already, supporters and critics of Sotomayor are seizing on the decision in an effort to defend their stance.

    In the high-profile, controversial case, white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., argued they were discriminated against when the city tossed out the results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough on it.

    Justice Anthony Kennedy authored the opinion in favor of Frank Ricci and his fellow firefighters who sued the city of New Haven.

    "The city's action in discarding the tests violated (federal law)," the Supreme Court majority wrote Monday, adding that the city's "race-based rejection of the test results" could not be justified.

    The city argued its action was prompted by concern that disgruntled black firefighters would sue. But that reasoning didn't hold sway with the court's majority.

    "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify the city's reliance of race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," the court ruled.

    This decision, like many of the close cases before the high court, divided along its familiar ideological lines. Kennedy was joined by the four conservatives on the court in issuing the majority decision.

    The court's more liberal members joined Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dissent which she read from the bench. "The white firefighters who scored high on New Haven's promotional exams understandably attract the court's sympathy," she said. "But they had no vested right to promotion."

    The firefighters are expected to hold a press conference Monday afternoon in New Haven.

    The 20 firefighters — 19 white and one Hispanic — who were denied promotions claimed city officials discriminated against them because they were more concerned about potential complaints of Civil Rights Act violations than their performance on advancement exams. The white firefighters argued discrimination is discrimination no matter what color it takes, and therefore, the city did violate the Civil Rights Act in not promoting them.

    Sotomayor was one of three appeals court judges who earlier ruled that New Haven officials acted properly.

    The reversal could be used as ammunition by some senators who don't want to see Sotomayor confirmed. Lawmakers on Capitol Hill swiftly issued statements on the ruling Monday and scheduled media appearances to discuss it.

    Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, applauded the decision and suggested trouble ahead for Sotomayor.

    "The Supreme Court today reminded all courts and governments that equal justice under the law means refusing to tip the scale in favor of one race over another," he said in a written statement. "The Senate Judiciary Committee should carefully examine Judge Sotomayor’s role in the Second Circuit’s opinion on this case. Discrimination and racial preferences have no place in our courts, let alone on the highest court in the land.â€
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  3. #3
    ELE
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    The Supreme Court made the Right Decision.

    I am relieved that the Supreme Court overturned Sotomayor decision, she is an obvious racist.
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  4. #4
    Senior Member carolinamtnwoman's Avatar
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    Great news!

  5. #5
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    USA TODAY

    High Court reverses Sotomayor in firefighter case

    The Supreme Court has ruled in favor of white Connecticut firefighters in a 5-4 ruling that reverses an appeals court finding by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, the Associated Press report.

    The high court found that the firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

    Update at 10:38 a.m. ET: The court ruled that New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the AP says. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

    “Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,â€
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  6. #6
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Two senatorial reactions to the New Haven ruling

    Here is a Democratic and a Republican reaction from members of the Senate Judiciary committee to the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling backing white firefighters in a discrimination case.

    The committee will take up shortly the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, who had joined the lower court ruling that was overturned today.

    Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, a former chairman of the committee, issued this statement:

    “The Supreme Court today correctly held that race-based employment decisions must be justified by facts, not fear. These firefighters, who worked long and hard for it, were denied the chance for promotion because of their race.

    In the twenty-first century, race discrimination requires more justification than the fear of being sued. The Second Circuit should have recognized the serious and unique issues this case raised and given it the thorough treatment it deserved.

    Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the committee, issued this statement, in part:

    The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision ... interprets the critical protections of Title VII in a way never intended by Congress when it passed this landmark law to prevent workplace discrimination more than 40 years ago. Today’s narrow decision is likely to result in cutbacks on important protections for American families.... It is less likely now that employers will conscientiously try to fulfill their obligations under this time-honored civil rights law....

    It would be wrong to use today’s decision to criticize Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who sat on the panel of the Second Circuit that heard this case but did not write its unanimous opinion. Judge Sotomayor and the lower court panel did what judges are supposed to do, they followed precedent. It is notable that four justices would have upheld the Second Circuit’s ruling, including the retiring Justice Souter, who Judge Sotomayor is nominated to replace....

    Had Judge Sotomayor’s panel ruled in favor of the firefighters claim, their decision would have been judicial activism contrary to clearly settled and longstanding Second Circuit precedent. The Second Circuit was bound by this precedent and not free to adopt a new interpretation of the law, as the Supreme Court has done today.

    Posted by Doug Stanglin at 12:25 PM/ET, June 29, 2009
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  7. #7
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Supreme Court rules for white firefighters in promotions

    Updated 53m ago | Comments 660
    By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY

    WASHINGTON — The city of New Haven wrongly discarded the results of a firefighter promotion test after whites outscored blacks and Hispanics, a bitterly divided Supreme Court ruled Monday in a decision likely to impact job practices nationwide.
    The 5-4 decision controlled by the court's conservative bloc raises the bar for employers that try to change job tests or other seemingly neutral criteria after they discover the tests disproportionately screen out racial minorities.

    The decision, which reverses a lower court decision that had been joined by current Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, elicited an impassioned dissent from the bench from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.


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    In the majority opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the court said New Haven violated a provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that bars discriminatory treatment in hiring and promotion.

    FIND MORE STORIES IN: John Roberts | Clarence Thomas | Samuel Alito | Antonin Scalia | David Souter | Anthony Kennedy | Ruth Bader Ginsburg | Cato Institute | Sonia Sotomayor | Stephen Breyer | John Paul Stevens | Roger Pilon
    New Haven officials had said they were trying to meet the demands of a separate Title VII provision that prohibits tests and others standards that cause a discriminatory impact. The officials said they tossed the results because they believed the test was flawed and they feared lawsuits from the blacks and Hispanics who failed to qualify for promotion.

    "The city … turned a blind eye to evidence that supported the exams' validity," Kennedy said, as he declared that the city lacked a "strong basis in evidence" that it had to discard the exam results.

    Rejecting the city's assertions about problems with whether the tests truly measured leadership skills, Kennedy added, "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions."

    In her dissent, Ginsburg emphasized the "two pillars" of civil rights law and said the majority had minimized the provision adopted by Congress to ensure that individuals are promoted based on qualifications necessary to do the job.

    She said the court majority ignored a history of race discrimination in New Haven firehouses and nationwide. "Firefighting is a profession in which the legacy of racial discrimination casts an especially long shadow," she said and asserted that the written test that counted for 60% of the promotional exams did not truly measure who would be good candidates for promotion to lieutenant or captain.

    "As a result of today's decision," she wrote, "an employer who discards a dubious selection process can anticipate costly disparate-treatment litigation in which its chances for success — even for surviving a summary-judgment motion — are highly problematic."

    Kennedy was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

    Ginsburg was joined in dissent by Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter and Stephen Breyer.

    Barbara Arnwine, executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said she agreed with Justice Ginsburg that the decision "will not have staying power."

    "We are shocked by the decision and we will continue our work to preserve the vital protections of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964," she said.

    Roger Pilon, vice president for legal affairs at the Cato Institute, cheered the ruling and said, "The city engaged in outright intentional discrimination."

    Monday's dispute traced to a decision by New Haven officials to cancel the results of a 2003 exam after no blacks and only two Hispanic applicants qualified for promotions based on their scores. (Of the 118 applicants for promotion to captain or lieutenant who took the test, a total 50 were racial minorities.)

    White firefighters sued, contending the city's action constituted "overt racial balancing" that violated Title VII and the Constitution's equality guarantee. They argued that the city lacked the grounds to believe it would be liable for indirect discrimination claims. They claimed the decision was political.

    The lead plaintiff in the case, Frank Ricci, is dyslexic. He said he spent $1,000 on materials to prepare for the exam.

    Sotomayor was part of a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that endorsed New Haven's action. She joined a short opinion that said, "The (New Haven) Civil Serivce Board found itself in the unfortunate position of having no good alternatives. We are not unsympathetic to the plaintiff's expression of frustration. Mr. Ricci, for example, who is dyslexic, made intensive efforts that appear to have resulted in his scoring highly on one of the exams, only to have it invalidated."
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  8. #8
    Senior Member Dixie's Avatar
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    Leahy also called the high court decision "cramped" and wrong.
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    No Patrick, your old, out of touch and out of your mind if you think this solution is wrong

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