This is the kind of justice we should expect to see...
Sonya Sotomayor’s most high-profile cases held that the city of New Haven, CT could disregard the scores on a promotional test for firefighters.
Frank Ricci, a firefighter in New Haven, Conn., worked hard, played by the rules, and earned a promotion to fire lieutenant. But the city denied him the promotion because he is not black. Ricci sued, along with 16 other whites and one Hispanic firefighter. After a 7-6, near-party-line vote by a federal Appeals Court to dismiss the lawsuit, the plaintiffs petitioned for Supreme Court review.
If Sotomayor is confirmed, she will again issue the same judgment she made when she was in the court of appeals.
Five of the majority judges, including Sotomayor, decided that New Haven’s decision to discard the test results and deny what would otherwise have been virtually automatic promotions to the highest-scoring white and Hispanic firefighters was “facially race-neutral.”
The reason? Because none of the low-scoring, ineligible African-American firefighters was promoted either. These five judges also endorsed Judge Arterton’s conclusion that the city’s decision was justified by fears that promoting the high-scoring whites might violate Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and bring a discrimination suit by the low-scoring blacks.
Simply because a much higher percentage of the whites than of the blacks who took the exams had passed, the majority said (adopting Judge Arterton’s opinion), the city could be “faced with a prima facie case of disparate impact liability under Title VII.”
“Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race,” Obama said in his much-acclaimed March 18 speech about race. “So when they ... hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed ... resentment builds over time.”
So it does. But based on Obama’s record and the views of the civil-rights specialists on his transition team, there is every reason to worry that he will appoint MORE civil-rights enforcers, judges, and justices bent on perpetuating the race-based discrimination against whites (and Asians) in many walks of life that is exemplified by the New Haven firefighter case.
The fact that he elevated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is just one evidence of that.
I've been wondering about this too, given today's recent events.
Is this true though? Could she possibly review the same case that she voted to deny in a lower court? Wouldn't this violate some sort of "ethical standard"? Wouldn't she be expected to recuse herself from this particular case?