High court rules in favor of white firefighters
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has ruled 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, potentially limiting the circumstances in which employers can be held liable for decisions when there is no evidence of intentional discrimination against 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,” 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.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with the ruling. It’s an important and probably needed tweaking of an evolving area of law.
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135 comments Add your comment
Roy Lee
June 29th, 2009
2:55 pm
So no blacks passed the promotion exam and only a few hispanics passed. Maybe taking your education a little more seriously could help correct that.
josef nix
June 29th, 2009
2:55 pm
Paul–heh, heh! But you know the latins ARE a colorful and happy people! Whew, don’t Ginsburg look like she had sawteeth for breakfast? She reminds me of one of my high school English teachers. She didn’t like hyperbole much either!
cranky old man
June 29th, 2009
2:57 pm
Personally, I don’t see it as a problem if a given population, whether it’s a student body or a workforce, is not proportionately representative of the overall population, as long as it’s not the result of deliberate discrimination. The test in question was a promotion exam, not an entrance exam. In order to be eligible to take the test for promotion to lieutenant or captain, I would assume one would need to be a graduate of a firefighting academy plus have several years experience as a firefighter, which would include advanced and recurrent training. With the same training and experience, I don’t see how one racial group or another would have an inherent advantage or disadvantage on a test of job knowledge.
Affirmative action, in its current form, is trying to correct the wrong inequities. Very few jobs worth having are ever really open to competition. The old adage, “It’s not what you know; it’s whom you know” is as apt today as it ever was. People see organizational charts that have most or all of the top positions filled by white males, and they jump to the conclusion there must be some scheme in place to exclude women and minorities. I suspect, however, that in most cases it’s not so much discrimination “against” certain groups as much as it is discrimination “for” people who are members of the right networks. People who are members of the same social circles, churches, fraternities, or country clubs, or whose fathers were college roommates of the guys who are doing the hiring always have the advantage. And, while it might be accurate to say most of the members of these networks are white, I don’t think it’s accurate to say that most white people are members. Those who are not members are in the same boat as minorities when competing against the “connected.” So now, with affirmative action, those few opportunities that might otherwise be open to actual competition automatically have a certain percentage of slots declared off-limits to non-minorities.
josef nix
June 29th, 2009
2:59 pm
PAUL–will do, the “secret” V-8 juice and a dash of Snap E Tom…
Doggone/GA
June 29th, 2009
3:00 pm
“I suspect, however, that in most cases it’s not so much discrimination “against” certain groups as much as it is discrimination “for” people who are members of the right networks.”
Discrimination is discrimination – for or against, it’s the same thing. Any discrimination “for” someone is discrimination “against” somone else. This is nothing more than a distinction without a difference.
josef nix
June 29th, 2009
3:05 pm
Okay, fart blossoms, family story time:
I was three years old when Sputnik when up. Uncle Ralph took me and my eight year old brother out to watch the wonder. My brother was having trouble understanding how “it got up there.” Uncle Ralph said just watch and I’ll explain it later down at the shop. “Down at the shop” was the magic word. It was his sanctum sanctorum and it was a VERY special invitation. He rolled his own and used kitchen matches. Well, with no preliminaries, he struck the match, cut a loud one, lit and said “that, boys, is jet propulsion.” Methinks he’d be glad to see a “beaner” on the high court!
@@
June 29th, 2009
3:06 pm
Paul:
You do know that’s the only real blue variety
I do! which is probably why it stinks.
TnGelding
June 29th, 2009
3:07 pm
We do like to eat! And me with an intestinal disorder.
josef nix
June 29th, 2009
3:07 pm
Cranky Old Man: “It’s not what you know OR who you know, but WHAT you know on who you know.”–Uncle Ralph
Doggone/GA
June 29th, 2009
3:11 pm
““It’s not what you know OR who you know, but WHAT you know on who you know.”–Uncle Ralph”
Wasn’t it Lyndon Johnson who said “I never trust a man unless I have his balls in my pocket”?
Frederick Douglass
June 29th, 2009
3:12 pm
Well apparently those firemen in New Haven are better educated than 3/4
of the rubes on this blog. I’m black, and I’d love to get a crack at that exam just for s*h*ts and giggles.
TnGelding
June 29th, 2009
3:12 pm
I’m sure y’all heard this a few times: Aunt after a burp, “I just robbed my butt of a fart.”
josef nix
June 29th, 2009
3:14 pm
Doggone–hold onto your hat, I wholeheartedly agree with your 3:00!
I Report :-) You Whine :-(
June 29th, 2009
3:19 pm
Many of those admitted had apparently suffered severe trauma. In the previous night, the student said, nine patients in the hospital where he works had died of their injuries; some 28 patients had bullet wounds. According to the student, government workers arrived in the early morning hours and took away the dead “on flatbed trucks, before we could even get their names or any other information.”
You think the murderous Iranian mullahs have made their choice yet, Obozo?
Normal
June 29th, 2009
3:19 pm
Paul
June 29th, 2009
2:15 pm
Normal
My kids would eat anything with ketchup.
———————
PAUL: Do you know the history of katsup? Invented by/for the British Navy back in the 1600s or so to hide the odor and flavor of rancid salt pork. When I was in the Navy and I saw alot of katsup out, I looked real hard at the meat offering, and usually decided on a PB&J…
josef nix
June 29th, 2009
3:19 pm
Doggone–are you an LBJ fan? He said of Bobby Kennedy when Lady Bird told him not to get in a dither about him, he was tougher than that “well just because you have the hide of an elephant doesn’t mean the darts of a Pygmy don’t sting!”
Normal
June 29th, 2009
3:22 pm
Somebody farted in a bathroom stall at work and I told him to quit talking politics…
Normal
June 29th, 2009
3:25 pm
WHINER, You’re back…Thank G-d, those aliens let you go…
cranky old man
June 29th, 2009
3:28 pm
Doggone/GA:
“Discrimination is discrimination – for or against, it’s the same thing. Any discrimination “for” someone is discrimination “against” somone else. This is nothing more than a distinction without a difference.”
The difference is that minorities are not the only ones disadvantaged. There are also a large number of non-minority aspirants who are left out in the cold for most decent jobs because they don’t have the right connections. And now they are doubly disadvantaged because even when there are competitive positions available to be awarded based on objective criteria, the objective criteria will be ignored specifically to exclude them if the results do not yield a sufficient number of qualified minorities.
TnGelding
June 29th, 2009
3:34 pm
Paul
June 29th, 2009
1:53 pm
But it’s not as good, per Chelsea Clinton.
From LexisNexis:
Rack of lamb was Hillary Rodham Clinton’s go-to meal. President Bill Clinton would have been happy with barbecued ribs every night of the week. Daughter Chelsea loved her Kraft mac and cheese, no matter how hard the White House chef tried to convert her to homemade. President Bush was up front: no soup, no salads, no greens and no “wet fish” – a real head scratcher for the White House chef. Unlike her husband, Laura Bush was crazy for healthful foods, especially organics.
josef nix
June 29th, 2009
3:37 pm
TnGelding: don’t trust nobody that don’t eat greens!
Gandalf, the White! (!)
June 29th, 2009
3:47 pm
The last conservative ruling ever, nice to have them guys win!
Gandalf, the White! (!)
June 29th, 2009
3:48 pm
Frederick Douglass: You’d still be putting our fires for the “man”, just sayin’
Normal
June 29th, 2009
3:51 pm
Hey, that’s my line…
I Report :-) You Whine :-(
June 29th, 2009
3:56 pm
Just another day in Chicago, where guns are “illegal-”
Tijuan Edwards, 18, was talking to a 25-year-old man in the street at 1916 S. Trumbull Ave. when multiple gunmen approached on foot and shot both men. Edwards was dead on the scene, and the 25-year-old was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital with gunshot wounds to the left arm, chin and thigh, police said.
About 11:20 p.m. Friday, Jovon Lee, 24, was fatally shot at 5928 S. Maplewood Ave., and was dead on the scene, the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said. Police found Lee shot in the neck.
About 2 a.m. Saturday, a man was fatally shot across the street from his Northwest Side home. Melvin Vallejo, 29, of 6100 W. Diversey Ave., was shot at 6105 W. Diversey Ave. and was dead on the scene, the medical examiner’s office said. Police said Vallejo was involved in an argument that became violent and he was shot in the head.
About 2:20 a.m. Saturday, a man was fatally shot on the South Side. Rodrick Scott, 21, of an unidentified home address, was pronounced dead about an hour later at 3:34 a.m. at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, after he was found shot on the 1000 block of West 60th Street.
Streets were quiet until Saturday night, when Ricardo Valdez, 20, was shot at 5924 S. Whipple St. and later pronounced dead. Police responded to the shooting at 8:18 p.m., according to police, who said the man was confronted on the street by six Hispanic men who fled south from Whipple Street after firing shots.
Also Saturday evening, Willie Short, 38, was shot and killed as he drove and ultimately crashed into a fence Saturday night at 4103 W. Madison St. in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, authorities said.
When guns are illegal, only criminals have guns.
Dusty
June 29th, 2009
4:02 pm
I wasted almost an hour reading this thing and nobody even mentioned the weather.
Please don’t quote Mark Twain. I’ve heard it. I’VE HEARD IT!
Frederick Douglass
June 29th, 2009
4:05 pm
“You’d still be putting OUR fires for the “man”, that’s exactly why I’d
most likely be “the man”.
josef nix
June 29th, 2009
4:12 pm
DUSTY–funny you should mention it. Just went out for a minute and came back in and told the Unmentionable “there’s a nice breeze and just the faintest hint of fall in the air” “Yeah, dream on…it’s still hot as h*ll and I’m not budging til October.”
md
June 29th, 2009
4:51 pm
“Both parties need accountability to clean up Washington.”
And that is why it will never happen. They will both fight tooth and nail to be sure accountability is for some of the masses, but never for themselves.
Paul
June 29th, 2009
4:57 pm
Normal
Thanks for the ketchup trivia!
TNGelding
Good luck with that intestinal prob. Thought about some of those health food bacteria pills? I know it can be miserable, but count your blessings. It could be worse. My son developed ulcerative colitis a bit ago – was 30. He now has no large intestine. It was a hellish nearly two years before the three major surgeries. And part of that was horrid, also. But he has a great attitude and he’s doing great.
No matter how bad it gets, someone else has it worse.
Tell It Like It Is
June 29th, 2009
5:36 pm
Does anyone know where the questions on the Connecticut test can be found? It would be interesting to see how the whites and Latinos managed to pass while all the blacks did not.
Paul
June 29th, 2009
6:10 pm
Tell it
I haven’t been able to find the exam. It was done by a private firm under contract to the city. Here’s a pretty good summary of the events:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricci_v._DeStefano
TnGelding
June 29th, 2009
6:30 pm
Paul
June 29th, 2009
4:57 pm
Congratulations to your son for his attitude and perseverance. I’ve been battling it for nearly 40 years and I’m trying to keep my gut. I should have had another operation a couple of years back, now I’m just not up to it mentally or physically. The bad thing is I have a ravenous appetite, which is a good thing, but I can’t eat very much and just a few foods.
Thanks for your sentiment. I think of that last line often.
Chesters Maker
June 29th, 2009
6:42 pm
I guess that Latino woman is a dumbazz…
TnGelding
June 29th, 2009
6:53 pm
Tell It Like It Is
June 29th, 2009
5:36 pm
Another summary:
http://www.ctlawtribune.com/getarticle.aspx?id=32076
ACLU the good guys again?
Another tact:
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/06/minority_firefi.php