Posted on 07/04/2009 7:08:58 AM PDT by IbJensen
WASHINGTON - A civil rights group on whose board Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor served filed racial bias lawsuits over employment examinations that resemble a Connecticut case in which she ruled against white firefighters, documents released by the Senate show.
The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund represented Hispanic sanitation workers in New York City who wanted to stop white employees from getting promotions because, they argued, the qualifying exam unfairly disadvantaged minorities. The case unfolded as Sotomayor chaired the organization's board of directors' litigation committee.
The New York case bears strong similarities to a much-discussed lawsuit Sotomayor ruled on last year as a federal appeals court judge, which involved the reverse discrimination claims of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn. They sued after the city threw out its promotion test because too few minorities passed. The judicial panel she joined ruled against the white firefighters in the case, Ricci v. DeStefano - a ruling the Supreme Court reversed last Monday.
The sanitation workers' case and similar ones that include a series of lawsuits against the New York City Police Department are detailed in hundreds of pages of new material the Senate Judiciary Committee put on its Web site Friday after receiving them from the Puerto Rican civil rights group.
The job discrimination suits have drawn outrage from Republicans who allege they prove Sotomayor has endorsed an agenda of reverse discrimination and racial preferences for minorities.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Judiciary panel, said this week that the Puerto Rican defense group has taken "extreme positions," and his office branded the organization "activist" in a background memo it released on Friday. His aides had accused Sotomayor's allies of withholding the documents to prevent a thorough investigation of her past before confirmation hearings begin July 13.
The materials give little insight into Sotomayor's role in the organization's activities, even while she chaired the board's litigation committee. They do suggest, however, that Sotomayor and other board members were involved in making sure the cases PRLDEF handled were in keeping with its mission statement and were having an impact, according to a memo she wrote in June 1987.
How can this not possibly be imortant to decide if this woman is fit for SCOTUS?
The Dems tried the “personal” route when they blasted Clarence Thomas with Anita Hill for days. What legal opinion did Anita Hill have?
May the spirit of the first Independence Day inspire a new one.
after democrat unions destroyed inner city schools,
it makes sense that they’d have to go after the promotions’ tests because they have not the means to pass these.
Amen.
Anita apparently was a recognized expert on pubic hair and Coke cans.
Other than that she was just a repulsive, socialist dyke.
Sotomayor has been a terrible judge, one of the absolute worst on the federal bench. Can anyone name a federal judge who is more incompetent? She has promoted quotas, disregard for the law and policy making by the judiciary. In addition, her decisions have been so poorly thought out and erroneous that almost all that have been appealed have been overturned. The problem is she is certain to be confirmed and even if she were not the Democrats would nominate someone just as bad or worse.
Of course she supports the leftist agenda. She has not been in the news for several weeks. Michael Jackson coverage has replaced all useful news.
Meanwhile the dems are preparing to vote her in. Then we will have the least competent justice we have ever had.
What does this have to do with Michael Jackson’s death? Geez, get with the program.
At least until the next one.
By the way, was his nose ever found? What did they do with it when the plastic surgeons removed it?
I can. Judge Russel Clark, a federal district judge out of Springfield, MO, took over the KCMO public school district back in 1977 or so, implementing a desegregation plan. That plan has been in effect since then and it's worked so well that in 2001, the KCMO public school district was still every bit as racially segregated, and test scores, while being pretty darned bad to begin with, had actually declined, and the district lost its state accreditation! And in fact, the district still isn't accredited by the state, meaning that for the last 8 years, no college in the country has to take a graduate from the KCMO public school district. And he managed to do all this for the paltry sum of $2,000,000,000 dollars. No, that's not a misprint... The feds & the state of MO spent TWO BILLION DOLLARS on this failed experiment. But that's not the best part...
Unhappy because the taxpayers of KCMO refused to increase tax revenues on themselves for a failing school district, judge Clark decided that he would do what the voters would not. Judge Clark imposed a tax on Kansas City, Mo, in order to help fund his desegregation plan! That's right, I'm not kidding. A judge imposed a tax. He claimed that "justice" was more important than the little fact that he didn't have the Constitutional authority to actually impose a tax.
When his ruling was struck down (as it should have been) he simply ordered the state legislature to increase the income tax, and the county to increase the property tax (by 91%!). And he struck down a law limiting how tax increases were to be allowed for schools. That went to the SCOTUS, and unfortunately, the leftists on the court (White, Brennan, Marshall, Blackmun and Stevens) ruled that federal judges don't have the authority to raise local property taxes, the modifications made by the appeals court - setting aside the State levy limitations so that the school district could levy its own tax - was "a judicial act within the power of a Federal court." ( http://www.civilrights.org/monitor/spring1990/art3p1.html ).
So, in effect, Clark felt that the need for "justice" overrode the Constitutional limitations placed on government. The rule of man, over the rule of law. We'll be seeing a lot more like this guy in the federal courts with Obama...
Mark
It is so ridiculous to the point that the adulation surpasses that heaped on Princess Di.
Is it true that fans are planning to have his remains stuffed and mounted? (In a nice way, I mean.)
Teddy can read. His problem is he can’t write his own name.
Mudd is perhaps best remembered for an interview he conducted with Senator Edward M. Kennedy for a November 4, 1979 CBS special, Teddy, aired three days before Kennedy officially announced his candidacy for the 1980 Democratic Presidential nomination.
Mudd asked Kennedy, "Senator, why do you want to be president?" Kennedy's "incoherent and repetitive" answer raised questions about his motivation in seeking the office, and marked the beginning of the sharp decline in Kennedy's impressive poll numbers.
President Jimmy Carter defeated Kennedy 50% to 38% in the Democratic primary vote. Although the Kennedy family refused any further interviews with Mudd, the interview helped strengthen Mudd's reputation as a leading political reporter.
Broadcaster and blogger Hugh Hewitt and Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson have used the term "Roger Mudd moment" to describe a self-inflicted disastrous encounter with the press by a presidential candidate.
You gotta' be really stupid to convince any of their members to give it up.
I was thinking the same damned thing!
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