Huge victory for equal rights, labor rights, and justice

This is a great victory for equality of treamtent under the law, justice, and labor rights.

It puts a nice dent into the pure disparate impact theory arguments that have been used to justify discrimination. Note, i did not say (as CNN does) "reverse discrimination". discrimination is discrimination. no "reverse" needed.

This will have no impact on legitimate affirmative action practices (improved outreach, scope etc.) but will put a big kibosh on cities, states, etc. trying to discriminate against people based on their race.

The title VII argument is sound.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. Supreme Court sided Monday with white firefighters in a workplace discrimination lawsuit, a divisive case over the role race should play in job advancement.


The Supreme Court in a 5-4 ruling backs firefighters in a reverse discirmination case.

1 of 2 In the split 5-4 vote, a majority of the justices ruled that the city of New Haven, Connecticut, improperly threw out the results of promotional exams that officials said left too few minorities qualified.

One Latino and no African-American firefighters qualified for promotion based on the exam; the city subsequently decided not to certify the results and issued no promotions.

A group of 20 mostly white firefighters sued, claiming reverse discrimination.nt i

or the language they speak. Both ways, us to them and them to us, whoever us or them is. We're brothers and sisters and anyone who thinks not is part of the problem.

And even then we will find reasons to discriminate against each other.

That's just the way humans roll, we deliberately pick out characteristics that we use to shun others and exclude them from our group.

Anyone who has been to high school should realize this.

FWIW, I'm a white man in late middle age.

In her dissent, Ginsburg emphasized the "two pillars" of civil rights law and said the majority had minimized the provision adopted by Congress to ensure that individuals are promoted based on qualifications necessary to do the job.

She said the court majority ignored a history of race discrimination in New Haven firehouses and nationwide. "Firefighting is a profession in which the legacy of racial discrimination casts an especially long shadow," she said and asserted that the written test that counted for 60% of the promotional exams did not truly measure who would be good candidates for promotion to lieutenant or captain.

"As a result of today's decision," she wrote, "an employer who discards a dubious selection process can anticipate costly disparate-treatment litigation in which its chances for success — even for surviving a summary-judgment motion — are highly problematic."

to call it straining the bounds of logic and credibility is to be nice.

and then explain your thoughts to us.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-1428.ZD.html

unlike so many here, i actually READ legal decisions before i form an opinion.

i end up reading about a dozen a month.

they affect my career significantly. it pays to know case law.

Please explain your thoughts on it.

She read it from the bench, right?

...and they basically came up with nothing.

their argument was essentially "we can get sued because the results are disparate, therefore it's ok to discriminate against the firefighters who passed the test (and happened to be white. one was latino iirc. could be white latino, i assume) in order to eliminate the possibility of being sued.


seriously.

It is the 5 right wing judges who decided to legislate from the bench.

They were not discriminated against. They have no right to benefit from a test that the city had thrown out a the test wasn't being used for anyone. At least they didn't until the activist justices decided to change the interpretation of te law.

This is so typical of the mindset of a subset of overly entitled white people who assume that if a test were to throw out too many white people there is obviously something wrong with it but when it throws out too many people of color well the white people were just somehow more qualified than all those black and brown people because it would just kill them to think that there is a person of color who may actually be better than than are. How could they be they're not white? Score another one for white privilege with this fuck witted ruling.

the reality is that disparate impact =/= disparate treatment/assessment.

the decision is not activist. it properly assesses title 7. it's sound.

there is no "white privilege" here. that's identity politics crap.

no objective measure is going to give perfectly racially balanced (or gender balanced) results.

this is similar to how asians in california were discriminated against in the UC system specifically, prior to passage of the prop that outlawed racial preferences.

i want the most qualified people leading firefighters into dangerous situations. the amount of knowledge needed about structures, fire types (try using water on a sodium fire and see what happens), is voluminous and lives are at stake.

it's the same with the physical tests for firefighters. years ago, some agencies actually used LIGHTER dummies for the dummy drag portion of the test, because if they used full weight dummies, very few women could pass the physical.

if you need to get dragged out of a fire because you are unconscious, you don't give a flying fuck what the person's race, gender, politics, etc. are. you just want somebody physically capable of dragging you out of there.

and if i'm a firefighter being led into a situation, or a building owner, i want the job attacked the correct way. i could give a flying fuck what the race of the person doing the leading is. i care about competency.

throwing out the test creates a perverse incentive. you are excusing people for underperformance by promising them if they do underperform (as long as their racial background is correct), that they get a "do over".

the firefighters who passed the test, passed it fair and square. they were the aggreived parties and they have been provided with justice. this is a victory for EQUAL treatment under the law, as well as the rights of labor to be treated and assessed fairly.

with all the ways this country bends over backwards to help out and aid white people while looking for ways to incarcerate and enslave black people in this country you've got a hell of a lot of nerve claiming reverse discrimination. This society has never done anything to keep white people down.

there is no such thing as reverse discrimination. it's a false distinction.

it's just discrimination. the firefighters who passed the test were discriminated against, largely based on their race, by the city.

and the scotus has corrected that injustice.

it wasn't reverse discrimination. it was discrimination.

because I'm white and female. Not. Trust me, not.

Do they assume you're a criminal? Do they the ignore your family's pleas for help when you go missing?

Hell no. Spare me the downtrodden woman bullshit. The biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action have been and continues to be white women.

Tell that to the Italians. Ever hear of Sacco and Vanzetti?

.

You agree with Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Kennedy.

i care about equal justice under the law, the rule of law, and the rights of labor.

And Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Scalia and Thomas are big protectors of equal justice under the law, the rule of law and the rights of labor.

Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy voted for Bush in Bush v Gore, clearly they care about the rule of law. If they had not cared about the rule of law they would have specified that ruling would not be usable as precedent.

Oh, wait.

The other two would likely have voted for Bush also, they just didn't get the chance.

Edited for clarity.

scalia et al are frequently wrong. in this case, they are correct.

if your mind is so closed that you judge the soundness of a legal opinion based on who is making it, then you aren't doing legal analysis. your just using prejudice. you are PREjudging based on who, not what.

In mine, and four other of the Supremes, they are not.

I find I mostly disagree with fascists, I'm funny that way.

And, for the record, I'm a late middle aged white man, so this decision would possibly benefit me.

who wants to be judged on merit vs. their race.

I work in an organization where a woman who studies for 4 years to earn a degree to improve her chances for promotion still earns maybe half of what too many ninth grade dropouts earn.

Merit? It should be about merit, but life is still unfair.

that external forces set wages so that your industry has higher wages?

the market offers choices. some careers offer better wages, than others

some offer better benefits, better prestige, more free time, etc. etc.

some offer significantly more danger, others are quite safe.

for example, at one point i considered completing grad school to get my MA in counseling psychology.

then, i decided that taking a 25k (at least) cut in pay + the cost of graduate school, wasn't worth it (plus, i think my current job would be way more fun and rewarding).

clearly, some people think it's worth it to become MHP's with an MA.

life isn't fair.

but the city of new haven has to be. they have to treat people EQUALLY, not give special preference based on race.

and that's what they did to the firefighters. they denied them promotions because they were the wrong race.

that's wrong.

At least if you define "merit" as being good at your job.

Political skill on the other hand has a great deal to do with promotion.

The world of "Dilbert" is far closer to reality than a lot of people would like to believe.

regardless of what you can say about it, political skill won't get you a better score on the written.

and it was primarily the written that gave the disparate results.

white firefighters scored better than blacks, and that reason was the SOLE basis, for the city to conclude that they risked getting sued. i agree with the scotus that their decision was made in good faith. however, good faith isn't enough. you need strong evidence to deprive the firefighters of their test results and chance at promotion.

it's about rule of law, equality, and justice.

But I don't..

And police officers here on DU are constantly talking about "good faith" when it comes to performing their jobs, there was a discussion here yesterday about just that with an officer mentioning "good faith" a number of times.

good faith exception generally applies to qualified immunity, for example.

if i do an illegal search based on good faith, the evidence will STILL get suppressed, though.

iow, just because you do something in good faith does not mean it's "ok" or there will not be consequences.

in this case, i think the city acted in good faith. acting in good faith and acting CORRECTLY are two entirely different things.

iow, i agree with the scotus. i don't think the city of new haven discriminated against the firefighters who passed the test out of bad faith. iow, i don't suspect animus or intentional wrongdoing.

the law makes all sorts of distinction between acts that are wrong, but done in good faith, and acts that are done in bad faith.

see for example : malfeasance vs. misfeasance.

and those are valid distinctions.

even white people.

this case provided that.

is that it's ok to discriminate against white people because they haven't historically been discriminated against.

what this decision says is actually pretty simple.

it says that yes, title VII applies to the firefighters who took (and passed) the test, not solely the ones who didn't.

the mere existence of a disparity of results is not sufficiently strong evidence of racial BIAS that would justify denying the people who passed the tests of their promotions.

the case makes clear that *if* that evidence was presented by the city, then their actions would have been justified.

it's sound, fair, and supports equal justice under the law, and labor rights.

and enforcement of title VII. Title VII protects ALL people of all races.

Of those 20 firefighters I'm sure there are a few great candidates for promotion, but probably a few guys who just feel entitled.

Ricci and sixteen other white test takers, plus one Hispanic, all of whom would have qualified for consideration for the promotions, sued the city including Mayor John DeStefano, Jr.. The lead plaintiff is Frank Ricci, who has been a firefighter at the New Haven station for 11 years. Ricci gave up a second job to have time to study for the test. Because he has dyslexia, he paid an acquaintance $1,000 to read his textbooks on to audiotapes. Ricci also made flashcards, took practice tests, worked with a study group, and participated in mock interviews. He placed 6th among 77 people who took the lieutenant's test.

Yup sure sounds like he felt entitled. People who feel entitled often quit their 2nd job, spend their own money preparing, and take countless hours away from family and friends to ensure they get the best possible score.

Ricci was lead to believe that scoring well was his ONLY chance at an officer slot.
He took the personal initiative to study above and beyond his peer.
He then did well (imagine that being prepared gives you an advantage).
The city then threw out the result.

Discrimination pure and simple.

Had the city done ANY research whatsoever to support a claim that the test was biased that would be another situation.

The city ADMITTED in court the SOLE reason for throwing out the test was fear of being sued.
So the city discriminates to prevent themselves from being sued and people think that is good policy?

The city is the party that screwed up when it created a rule that said that the only people to be considered for promotion MUST come from the top 3 scorers on a civil service exam.

And the 4th sentence in the AP release is flat out bullshit. Multiple blacks and latinos passed the exam. They just didn't score high enough to meet the requirements of the city of New Haven, and/or were rejected for considerations that had nothing to do with the exam itself.

The CITY is the one which discriminated. THEY were wrong. THEY are the ones who decided that someone's test score should outweigh their career history. THEY made those dumb fucking decisions, and THEY deserved to get sued over them.