Bush did a lot of damage

[novapsyche]

Firefighters and Race (NYT article)

The court ruled, 5-to-4, that New Haven acted illegally when it threw out a promotion test on which minority firefighters had done poorly. In doing so, it put a new, narrower definition on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which is intended to root out discriminatory policies.

[...] The Supreme Court reversed the panel’s ruling. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the majority, said throwing out the promotion exam was a race-based decision that hurt the white firefighters. It was permissible under Title VII, he wrote, only if the city could demonstrate a "strong basis in evidence" that if it had kept the test it would have been liable in a lawsuit by minority firefighters. New Haven failed to show that, he said.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the dissenters, provided the larger context. There is a long history of discrimination in the firefighting ranks. Although New Haven is nearly 60 percent black and Hispanic, few minorities are in command positions. She noted that New Haven’s test was flawed, and that other cities used better tests, with less racially skewed results.

[...] On another point, the ruling underscored the emptiness of the "judicial activist" label that Republicans like to use in debates over nominees to the federal courts, including Judge Sotomayor. In the firefighters’ case, she actually refused to second-guess the city’s decision — an act of judicial restraint. It was the court’s conservatives, including Chief Justice John Roberts, who voted to overturn the decision of an elected government.

Comments

[netmouse.livejournal.com]

What's particularly frustrating to me about that case is it isn't even a "these people were promoted over these people" case - it was a city saying "whoops, our basis for promotion could be flawed" and starting the process over before promoting anyone.