Nope. No sarcasm. That's exactly how I read Sotomayor's position. :0(
Posted on 05/31/2009 2:30:42 PM PDT by Starman417
The Wall Street Journal got their hands on a recording of the Ricci v. DeStefano hearing that is much talked about when Sotomayor's name comes up.
[audio at site]
During the audio you will hear Judge Pooler, Judge Sotomayor and the attorney for the firefighters, Karen Lee Torre. There are a few interesting snippets from the audio like when Judge Pooler asks of Torre why shouldn't Hayden v. County of Nassau dispose of the Ricci case. Torre says in effect that in Hayden no one was hurt. Pooler says that no one was hurt in Ricci either at which point Torre interrupts and says:
No one was hurt? For heaven's sakes, judge, if they didn't refuse to fill the vacancies, these men would be lieutenants and captains. How can you say they weren't hurt? They're out $1,000 a piece. Half of their marriages were strained by this. They spent 3 months of their lives holed up in a room like I was and you were when we took the bar exam.
Torre also does an outstanding job of detailing why throwing out an exam in favor of an easier one would cost lives:
I think a fundamental failure is the application of these concepts to this job as if these men were garbage collectors. This is a command position of a First Responder agency. The books you see piled on my desk are fire science books. These men face life threatening circumstances every time they go out. ... Please look at the examinations. ... You need to know: this is not an aptitude test. This is a high-level command position in a post-9/11 era no less. They are tested for their knowledge of fire, behavior, combustion principles, building collapse, truss roofs, building construction, confined space rescue, dirty bomb response, anthrax, metallurgy, and I opened my district court brief with a plea to the court to not treat these men in this profession as if it were unskilled labor. We don't do this to lawyers or doctors or nurses or captains or even real estate brokers. But somehow they treat firefighters as if it doesn't require any knowledge to do the job.
Not long after is when Sotomayor comes in:
(Excerpt) Read more at Flopping Aces ...
Thats some blog. like the Wild Wild West look.
JUDGE SOTOMAYOR: Counsel … we’re not suggesting that unqualified people be hired. The city’s not suggesting that. All right? But there is a difference between where you score on the test and how many openings you have. And to the extent that there’s an adverse impact on one group over the other, so that the first seven who are going to be hired only because of the vagrancies [sic] of the vacancies at that moment, not because you’re unqualified–the pass rate is the pass rate–all right? But if your test is always going to put a certain group at the bottom of the pass rate so they’re never ever going to be promoted, and there is a fair test that could be devised that measures knowledge in a more substantive way, then why shouldn’t the city have an opportunity to try and look and see if it can develop that?
We're suggesting that if you're not hiring or promoting a majority of minorities every single time, whatever the reason or circumstance, then you shouldn't hire or promote whites either. Especially white males. Especially those people...
I hope you forgot the.... /sarc
I never heard how many non-white minorities took the test. Did they study as hard and spend the amount of time the top guys did and still do poorly? What lesson is there in all of this for young people? Already we hear about schools who don’t want to grade anyone lest they feel badly when they don’t do as well as someone who studied their butt off. Why work hard? Why study hard? People are going to die for this attitude with our First Responders. Ms. Sotomayor would make a horrible member of SCOTUS - what more proof is needed? So, she graduated summa cum lauda - who cares? In the Ivy League schools that just means that you are all about Social Justice and the New World Order.
Nope. No sarcasm. That's exactly how I read Sotomayor's position. :0(
Understnad now...DIdn’t realize you were not saying it yourself but “quoting” her.
As if her word aren’t bad enough, her actions are the born fruit of her words.
Don’t y’all know that all tests must be designed so no one ever fails?
Yeah, you're right. WouldaShouldaCoulda put quotes around it or something. Glad you cleared that up! :0)
What the heck? She blew up her own argument!
She is what she says.....Hope in the Senate cross examination she shows some of the temperament she is known for. We will see.
Bump!
Why would they, if they were told they would get special treatment because of their race? It is clear they were correct, as the results were tossed when others who worked harder did better.
I still would love to see the test, to see what possibly you could do in a firefighter test to bias the results so that white people do better.
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