Court Rules for White Firefighters Over Promotions: New Haven, Conn.

rockin'robin

rockin'robin

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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.

Court rules for white firefighters over promotions - Yahoo! News

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, 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.

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.

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.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090629/ap_on_go_su_co/us_supreme_court_firefighters_lawsuit
 
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I agree. And oh, such memories from that thread. ;) Haha, but I'm happy with the decision they made, I guess we'll have to see how it plays out from there.
 
Supreme Court rules in favor of white firefighters.

(Updated 1:53 p.m.) New Haven has lost the firefighters promotion case — and national civil rights law is being reinterpreted as a result.

That was the upshot Monday morning as the long-awaited Supreme Court decision came down in the case known as Ricci v. DeStefano.

The case was filed by 20 city firefighters — 19 white, one Hispanic — who said the city violated their rights by ignoring the results of 2004 promotional exams because no black firefighters scored high enough to be immediately promoted.

The Supreme Court’s justices, voting 5-4, agreed.

They sent the case back to U.S. District Court in New Haven, where federal Judge Janet Arterton had originally ruled for the city that it was OK to ignore the results.

But the Supreme Court didn’t give Arterton room to delve back into the complex legal issues involved in the case, as many observers had expected. Instead, as plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Torre noted as she digested the verdict, “it was an out-and-out reversal.”

Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the swing vote, as expected. He also wrote the majority opinion released at 10 a.m. Monday. He made an argument that is bound to resound for years to come as lower courts and local governments interpret civil rights law in hiring.

Kennedy zeroed in on the issue that Karen Torre hammered home from the start of the case: That the city shouldn’t have ignored the results of a test just because it thought it might face a lawsuit.

The court wasn’t convinced that the test itself had been racially discriminatory.

Read the decision here.

The bottom line, according to top court-watching blogger Tom Goldstein: “The plaintiff firefighters won. New Haven violated the law by throwing out the test.”

Four conservative justices were firmly lined up on the side of 20 New Haven firefighters who sued and charged reverse discrimination. Four members of the court’s liberal wing sympathized with the city’s argument that under Title VII it had no choice but to throw out the results of the test, because no black test-takers scored high enough to qualify for a promotion.

In his opinion, swing vote Kennedy wrote that the city must certify the results from a 2004 promotional exam — and can use this interpretation of civil rights law to ward off a subsequent lawsuit.

“Fear of litigation alone cannot justify the City’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions. Discarding the test results was impermissible under Title VII, and summary judgment is appropriate for petitioners on their disparate-treatment claim,” Kennedy wrote.

“If, after it certifies the test results, the City faces a disparate-impact suit, then in light of today’s holding the City can avoid disparate-impact liability based on the strong basis in evidence that, had it not certified the results, it would have been subject to disparate-treatment liability.”

Kennedy’s opinion confirmed the general notion that governments can take steps to make sure that their hiring processes don’t discriminate. What seemed to irk him in part was the idea of changing the rules after a test has been set.

“[O]nce 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,” Kennedy wrote. “Doing so, absent a strong basis in evidence of an impermissible disparate impact, amounts to the sort of racial preference that Congress has disclaimed … and is antithetical to the notion of a workplace where individuals are guaranteed equal opportunity regardless of race.”

Fire union President Pat Egan claimed vindication. He had all along called for a “validation study” that would review whether in fact the test was flawed.

“In reading the decision, what the court seems to have concluded is that you need to base these decision more than just off the results,” he said. “What they seem to allude to would be the process that we advocated for at the onset of this, which was a validation review of the exam itself.”

Meanwhile Monday morning, at New Haven’s Goffe Street firehouse — where named plaintiff Frank Ricci works — four firefighters awaited the verdict on Fox News. They sat silently as the news broke.

“Wait, did they make a decision?” asked one firefighter, who was filling in for Ricci. (Both Ricci and Gary Tinney, the leading African-American firefighter supporting the city in this case, had the day off. Tinney works at the Goffe Street firehouse, too.)

A Yale Daily News reporter present explained the verdict to him.

“Good. Good. Good,” the firefighter said. “I’m so happy.”

The firefighters present said they’re under a gag order not to discuss the case.

“The mood here is fine,” their supervisor, Lt. Louis Rivera (pictured), said before the announcement. “Everyone gets along.”

“We were told by the chief’s office not to comment while on duty,” he added.

The case began in 2004 when the 20 firefighters, 19 white and one Hispanic, filed the lawsuit claiming that New Haven discriminated against them by ignoring the results of promotional exams when no African-Americans scored high enough. After losing two rounds in federal court, the firefighters convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case; they found a notably more sympathetic audience there.

The case has become a lightning rod in the national debate over anti-discrimination law and affirmative action. It has also become Exhibit A in the case opponents are making against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

National civil rights groups backed the city’s position. They argued that the firefighters’ suit threatened to eviscerate laws — particularly Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — that afford opportunities for African-Americans to advance in fields, such as firefighting, in which racial discrimination lingers.

National groups opposed to affirmative action weighed in on the side of the firefighters, as did TV commentators and others who viewed this as a case of reverse discrimination. Some argued that in light of the election of an African-American president, Title VII and affirmation action are outdated.

When the Supreme Court’s justices heard the case on April 22, the Obama Administration weighed in with a middle position.

At issue was whether the non-black firefighters’ constitutional rights were violated under the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution; and whether, under Title VII, a city should throw out the results of a test it had believed it conducted fairly because it still believes it could be sued over the results.
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New Haven Independent: Supreme Court Overturns City On <em>Ricci</em>

Finally, a court that understands the meaning of "It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin."

The Equal Pay Act of 1963
 
Oooh how I wonder what certain people would say about this........
 
The case was filed by 20 city firefighters — 19 white, one Hispanic — who said the city violated their rights by ignoring the results of 2004 promotional exams because no black firefighters scored high enough to be immediately promoted.
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A truer statement/title would have been:

"Supreme Court rules to disallow ruling based upon race"

The tests were based on books, materials, and knowledge possessed by all firefighters, regarless of race. If there were no black firefighter who scored highest all it says is that those firefighters need to study harder for the next test.

If I take a promotional test and do not get top spot I do not whine "because I am a female" I study harder next time.
 
I agree with the ruling.

Ginsberg as usual is all wrong:
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."
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The white and Hispanic firefighters most certainly do have a vested interest to the promotions and a right to the promotions based upon their test scores.
 
ASLGAL said:
A truer statement/title would have been:

"Supreme Court rules to disallow ruling based upon race"

The tests were based on books, materials, and knowledge possessed by all firefighters, regarless of race. If there were no black firefighter who scored highest all it says is that those firefighters need to study harder for the next test.

If I take a promotional test and do not get top spot I do not whine "because I am a female" I study harder next time.
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Good point. I certainly didn't intend to mean that their ruling was anti-minority, but I can see how the thread title might come off like that. My bad.
 
Mod's Note:

Both threads have been merged.


I'd say this is an interesting result out of the Supreme Court. Just gotta wait and see where it goes down the road. :hmm:
 
I agree.

Just because so few blacks didn't pass doesn't mean whites can't be promoted!
 
lsfoster said:
I agree. And oh, such memories from that thread. ;) Haha, but I'm happy with the decision they made, I guess we'll have to see how it plays out from there.
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yep.... yep..... :lol:
 
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