Sotomayor, the member of racial supremacist organization La Raza, has been overruled by the Supreme Court today, in the matter of Ricci v. DeStefano, when they found that the city of New Haven had in fact used a disctiminatory racial basis for determing promotions within the department.
As background, the New Haven Fire Department uses a test to determine the eligibility of a Fireman to advance to the rank of Lieutenant, similar to that used during WWI and WWII to determine who among hte enlisted ranks in the armed forces had the potential to be an officer.
A number of applicants took the tests for Lieutenant and Captain. With a limited number of spots available (7 for the Captain’s slot, 8 for the Lieutenant’s Slot), the top scoring applicants would move on to the next level.
In those results, no black applicants met the minimum score necessary to be eligible for the position.
The Civil Service Board of the City of New Haven threw out the results, because there where not enough black people in the finalist pool.
One of the Firemen, lead plaintiff Frank Ricci, testified to the board, that he had incurred over a thousand dollars in expenses, and had even payed a friend to read the text books he needed to study on tape, so that Ricci could overcome his Dyslexia to study for the test.
Today, Kennedy led Alito, Scalia, Roberts, and Thomas in the Majority Opinion that the dismissal of the test on the basis of race was a violation of Title VII.
Ginsburg led the dissent, along with Stevens, Souter, and Breyer.
If you read the opinion though, it reads more like a 9-0, and is a rather, confusing opinion decision and seems to be more a rebuff of Sotomayor.
Watching the Supreme Court of late, it seems like everyone else might as well stadn down, and we should just let Kennedy decide issues based on which side of the bed he wakes up on, as every case of late seems to come down to how Kennedy decided to vote, and as someone who loves the constitution, this sickens me.
More on the story can be found at the following:
The Climate Heretic 