When firefighters in New Haven, CT passed a promotion exam then were denied promotions because no black firefighters passed the same exam, they were pissed. When their successful suit was reversed by Sonya Sotomayor's appeals court, they were outraged, but the US Supreme Court set things right today.
I'm assuming the exam didn't include questions like "Which NASCAR driver won the Winston Cup title in 1997?" or the Supremes would probably have ruled differently. As it was, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent that the firefighters "...had no vested right to promotion." That wasn't their argument, nor the city of New Haven's. New Haven told the firefighters they must pass the exam in order to be promoted, and then, by the city's own admission, they set aside the exam results out of fear of lawsuits from the minority firefighters.
I'm also assuming that the citizens of New Haven are more interested in the competence of their firefighters than in the color of their skin.
Sonya Sotomayor's famed "empathy" as a "wise Latina" is really nothing more than the soft bigotry of low expectations and if confirmed, her attempts to legislate from the bench - an inclination already shown in the Ricci v. DeStefano New Haven firefighter case - will take years to undo.
On the other hand, she can hardly be much worse than Justice Ginsburg, the one she's nominated to replace.
4 comments:
GOD I love your blog.
file this whole situation under dear dumbasses...
For a dog, you're very astute, Sprite. Have an extra Milk Bone tonight. ;-)
Here's the real culprit in that case - New Haven's version of Jeremiah Wright.
>>Rev. Kimber told firefighters that certain new recruits would not be hired because “‘they just have too many vowels in their name[s].’
http://www.newhavenindependent.org/archives/2009/06/was_he_the_culp.php
Wow...that Kimber guy sounds like a piece of work. But as I recall, seems pretty typical of New Haven.
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