Thread: World Socialist Web on Sotomayor

If I am trying to oppose something that I think Democrats and even liberal Republicans might support I haven't found anything better than to link the issue with radical communist or socialist organizations. Even liberals will shy away from something that is too closely supported by the Far Left. I did this, locally, on a blog when I published that the communist groups were supporting the $11 Trillion "Rebuild America" campaign, even though many of the advisors had come from business elements.

So here is a possibility on the Sotomayor nomination Does this article help turn it into a hot potato?. Send this article--and its source--on to your congressman.


World Socialist Web Site
wsws.org
Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)
Supreme Court upholds white firefighters’ discrimination claims
By John Andrews
30 June 2009

In a closely watched decision issued on the last day of its 2008 term, the US Supreme Court ruled that the city of New Haven, Connecticut, engaged in purposeful discrimination against a group of white firefighters when it refused to promote them according to results of an examination in which all the black and most of the Hispanic candidates placed too low to qualify.

Reversing two lower court decisions, the 5-4 vote in Ricci v. DeStefano fell along the now familiar reactionary versus moderate lines, with Associate Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, joined by the right-wing bloc comprised of Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, and Samuel A. Alito, Jr., the latter two penning separate concurring opinions.

Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent, which she read from the bench to display the degree of her displeasure over the ruling, was joined by the three other moderates, John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer. It was Souter’s last day on the high court. Sonia Sotomayor, president Obama’s nominee to fill his seat, was one of the appellate judges whose decision to affirm the district court ruling rejecting the white firefighters’ claim was overturned.

One hundred eighteen New Haven firefighters took an examination in 2003—60 percent of which was written and 40 percent oral—to qualify for promotions to the rank of lieutenant or captain. Seventeen white and two Hispanic firefighters finished with the highest scores, qualifying them for immediate promotions. The results were challenged as unfair—due to long entrenched cultural and educational disparities black candidates tend to score lower on written examinations—and after contentious public hearings, New Haven set aside the results.

The white firefighters, joined by one Hispanic, filed suit in federal court, claiming intentional discrimination. The United States District Court issued a 47-page analysis dismissing their claim, which a three-judge appellate panel affirmed in a one paragraph ruling. By a 7-6 vote the entire Second Circuit refused to hear the case “en banc,â€

Great article and idea Captainron. Thank You