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Supreme Court Reverses Sotomayor Ruling
Thankfully, the Supreme Court has narrowly reversed the decision of Sotomayor's lower court ruling in the RICCI ET AL. v. DESTEFANO ET AL. case. You may recall that the case involved a firefighter's exam given by the New Haven, Connecticut government to determine which firefighters should be promoted to lieutenant.
When the test results came back and the white firefighters had significantly outperformed some (but not all) of the minority firefighters who took the same test, the New Haven government refused to certify the exam on the grounds that doing so would open them up to lawsuit liability by minorities under the Civil Rights Act. The white and Latino firefighters who would have been promoted sued New Haven, alleging that they were the victims of racial discrimination.
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.
I found the opinion syllabus for the case over at SCOTUSblog and it's an eye-opener, definitely worth reading, especially when you read what most media outlets neglected to add to their reports. For one, Ginsburg's comment about having 'sympathy' for the firefighters who were denied promotions on the basis of their race was rebutted admirably by Justice Alito who stated on page 54 of the opinion,
The dissent grants that petitioners’ situation is “unfor-tunate” and that they “understandably attract this Court’s sympathy.” Post, at 1, 39. But “sympathy” is not what petitioners have a right to demand. What they have a right to demand is evenhanded enforcement of the law—of Title VII’s prohibition against discrimination based on race. And that is what, until today’s decision, has been denied them.
This decision is a broadside against radical egalitarianism, which holds that equality of opportunity is not enough -- that equality of outcomes must be falsely manufactured by the government through the use of quotas and other racially discriminatory measures. Politically, this will also keep Sotomayor's eligibility as a member of the Supreme Court in the public arena.
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Today, the Supreme Court handed down the most embarrasing decision that could have happened, in overturning an appeals court ruling authored by President Omaba's nominee to fill Justice Souter's seat, Court of Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor. In Ricci v. DeStefano, the Court sided with New Haven's firefighters. (WP article) The case invovled a promotion test for firefighters for Lieutenant and Captain, where those who scored the best were white and hispanic. The City of New Haven, fearing a discrimination lawsuit, threw out the results for racial reasons. Many of the white and hispanic test takers who would have gotten promotions based on the test then sued the City to have the test certified. The District Court and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the City.
The decision was 5-4, but the 4 votes of the liberal bloc (Stevens, Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg) all would have remanded, meaning that none of the justices agreed with Judge Sotomayor's reasoning.
Ouch. I like this comparison by Wendy Long in NRO's Bench Memos:
Tom Goldstein of SCOTUSblog has this nugget:
Not sure I completely agree with Goldstein here - the simple fact that all 9 disagreed on the lower court's analysis is a direct swipe at Sotomayor, who authored the Second Circuit's decision in the case.
The decision itself is on the Court website here. (H/T Scotusblog) Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, joined by the Chief Justice and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito. Justice Scalia wrote a concurring opinion, and Justice Alito wrote a concurring opinion joined by Justices Scalia and Thomas. The dissenting opinion was written by Justice Ginsburg, and joined by Justices Souter, Stevens and Breyer. The Opinion of the Court begins on page 5 of the PDF; Scalia begins on Page 39; Alito on Page 42, and the dissenting opinion of Justice Ginsburg on Page 55 . The Alito concurrence takes swipes at the dissenting opinion, noting that if the dissenting opinion's legal analysis was used, the affirmance of the Court of Appeals is "untenable".
-relantel
The decision was 5-4, but the 4 votes of the liberal bloc (Stevens, Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg) all would have remanded, meaning that none of the justices agreed with Judge Sotomayor's reasoning.
I should make your comment the blog post and convert my post to a comment, LOL!
This should be very embarassing to the 'Wise Latina'. I hope it comes up during her confirmation hearings.
-Krogenar
Another read on it is from Stewart Taylor in the National Journal.
What's more striking is that the court was unanimous in rejecting the Sotomayor panel's specific holding. Her holding was that New Haven's decision to spurn the test results must be upheld based solely on the fact that highly disproportionate numbers of blacks had done badly on the exam and might file a "disparate-impact" lawsuit -- regardless of whether the exam was valid or the lawsuit could succeed.
This position is so hard to defend, in my view, that I hazarded a prediction in my June 13 column: "Whichever way the Supreme Court rules in the case later this month, I will be surprised if a single justice explicitly approves the specific, quota-friendly logic of the Sotomayor-endorsed... opinion" by U.S. District Judge Janet Arterton.
Unlike some of my predictions, this one proved out. In fact, even Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's 39-page dissent for the four more liberal justices quietly but unmistakably rejected the Sotomayor-endorsed position that disparate racial results alone justified New Haven's decision to dump the promotional exam without even inquiring into whether it was fair and job-related.
Justice Ginsburg also suggested clearly -- as did the Obama Justice Department, in a friend-of-the-court brief -- that the Sotomayor panel erred in upholding summary judgment for the city. Ginsburg said that the lower courts should have ordered a jury trial to weigh the evidence that the city's claimed motive -- fear of losing a disparate impact suit by low-scoring black firefighters if it proceeded with the promotions -- was a pretext. The jury's job would have been to consider evidence that the city's main motive had been to placate black political leaders who were part of Mayor John DeStefano's political base.
It seems I was partially mistaken yesterday - the 2nd Circuit opinion was not authored by Sotomayor, just joined by her.
-relantel
Ed Whelan on NRO's Bench Memos this AM notes that the reversal has affected public opinion on whether Sotomayor should be confirmed - at least as far as Rasmussen has tracked, according to its analysis of its latest survey of public opinion on the Sotomayor nomination.
Now, as Whelan goes on to say, this in and of itself doesn't doom her confirmation chances - but if the polling should shift sharply in the negative direction even further than it is now, the margin of confirmation becomes smaller.
-relantel
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