More Questions About Judge Sotomayor

Sotomayor's position in Ricci was consistent with precedent and had the support of 4 of the 9 justices. The ruling was very much in the mainstream of understanding under Title VII and completely consistent with the rule of law and an understanding of the Constitution.

I believe that the Supreme Court Justices came to the correct ruling. It is my opinion that the basis for denying promotions to the white firefighters and one hispanic firefighter were invalid, with a leaning toward minority favoritism, which could amount to racism. The ruling by the Supreme Court states that these firefighters were denied this based on their race. What happened to blind justice? Courts should be looking at the merits of the case and not a person's skin color. The law is the law, and everyone regardless of what ethnic background must follow it. This could spell trouble for the empathetic Sotomayor, in her confirmation hearings.

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I agree with the Supreme Court's decision in Ricci v. DeStefano. Each candidate had equal access to score high enough to exceed the cutoff mark to have their exam certified for promotional status. Therefore, promotions were not based on race but skills, experience, and intellectual capacities demonstrated through high performance on a standard exam available to all candidates. From a diversity perspective, although it would have been nice to see passing scores from more minority groups including race and sex (male/female) since people from different backgrounds and sex have the capacity to analyze and solve problems in creative lights, bringing enhanced perspectives and skill sets to the table, there continues to be a need for an objective assessment for firefighters and police officers to determine who is qualified to obtain a promotion.

Dear Boris,

Have you been to Disney World? There are no strip mines or oil wells there, and the developments have been held at a distance. Asians, Europeans, Brazilians and Americans of every color flock there year after year.

Funny, not one penny of your tax dollars is spent keeping it up, and it had no geysers, only swampland, when Disney turned it into a goldmine. The gummint, on the other hand, can turn every silk purse into a sows ear, taxing everyone, favoring whites, losing money.

In a principled defense of the New Haven position, Tim Wise (www.timwise.org) claims that:

"It is the city's position, amply documented in the record, that the tests on which Ricci and the other plaintiffs did so well, and on which blacks did so much worse, were invalid indicators of ability. As such, throwing them out did not amount to sacrificing standards, and did not deny Ricci or the others anything to which they were morally or legally entitled. To be promoted on the basis of a flawed exam is not a right, philosophically or constitutionally, that either Ricci or any other person can claim to hold.

"That the city concluded the test was flawed is critical here, because it suggests that tossing out the scores was not merely a pretext for racial discrimination against the white firefighters. This is ultimately the Constitutional issue at hand, which the Court is being asked to decide, and which two previous courts have decided in the city's favor.

"Rather, New Haven's actions were based on a determination that the standard being used was inadequate to the task of picking those who would make the best supervisors, and that if they used it, they might be subjected to a successful lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Under the law, policies that have a disparate racial impact are prohibited, unless those policies can be deemed directly related to job performance. Because they felt the test might not be defensible on those grounds, the city threw out the results. But this decision was about test validity, rather than being based on a desire for racial balance as some larger social goal."

If this is the case, then it appears that Judge Sotomayer's decision was the correct one and that the Supreme Court got it wrong this time.

I haven't read the Court's decision yet, so I'm still open to hearing to their reasoning.

Wow, is Sekulow's response lame!

I am a strong supporter of affirmative action - certified, in fact,
but I agree with the majority of the Supremes in this case that its wrong for New Haven to burden the employees who successfully performed on New Haven's shitty test! Having given the crummy test, New Haven should have to take their medicine for their own poor management performance and promote the white firefighters AND ALSO pay the price of finding other, additional ways to promote the qualified minorities whom the test unfairly failed.

Or else pay the price of the subsequent suit by the discriminated -against minorities!

Why do so many people act as if that's SO hard to understand!