| Firefighters win Supreme Court appeal
Posted: 6/29/2009 1:58:13 PM | From the AP story:
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.
New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.
The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.
"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
Thank God we are finally bringing common sense back to the hiring/promotional process. Hopefully this will end the practice of lowering the bar in order to assure we have the "proper distribution" of candidates for promotion.
I would really love for someone to explain to me how something as factually based as a Firefighters promotion exam could be racially biased. When the people taking the test have the same Fire Academy training, the same on the job experiences and training and access to the same training materials how can anyone claim racial bias?
Now that this has been corrected do you believe this will bring reason back to hiring practices and requirements? Do you think this will end the practice of lowering the bar in order to achieve some ill/vaguely defined perfect distribution of promotion candidates based upon race?
Once again in an attempt to end racism we have institutionalized racism. | |
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| Firefighters win Supreme Court appeal
Posted: 6/29/2009 2:05:47 PM | Unfortunately, I think it's been lowered too much already to the point where many (but not all) find it too difficult to wrap their minds around certain issues - such as this one. Also unfortunately, I don't think this showing will have very much bearing on Sotomayor's nomination. At least her decisions will be somewhat predictable.
Good for the firefighters, though - I hope they get full back pay, benefits and a nominal punitive damages won't hurt - you can't buy time lost to reverse discrimination. | |
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| Firefighters win Supreme Court appeal
Posted: 6/29/2009 2:15:00 PM | This was a sound decision, today, but it's not going to end affirmative action, unfortunately.
Also, it will have a possible undesired side effect. The problem is the inherent conflict between Title VII's disparate impact regime, and its disparate treatment regime. You have a statute that prohibits the disparate treatment of people on the basis of race, but that also requires you not to engage in activity that results in a disparate impact for protected classes (here, race), with a three-prong defense being applicable should disparate impact be proved, but not a very strong defense. However, the courts have been slowly coming around to seeing this internal conflict in the statute, and giving businesses an out. So, you end up with what happened in New Haven. A public entity that drafted sound and efficient exams for firefighters, only to find that the only people who scored well on the exam were white. If they had hired all of those white people, New Haven feared disparate impact litigation. If they abandoned the exam results, and went with an affirmative action hiring scheme, they, as we know, faced disparate treatment litigation. It's a constant push and pull for public and private enterprises that isn't going to just go away. The Supreme Court correctly interpreted the law, but this is going to lead to a lot more disparate impact litigation.
The real problem is Title VII. It should be repealed. There's no use for it anymore, truthfully. But don't hold your breath. | |
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| Firefighters win Supreme Court appeal
Posted: 6/29/2009 2:49:49 PM | | i wish that all hireing.promotions etc could be done by a computer......you get the job/promotion based on experiance, past performance and abilities ....none of the "politically correct " b/s | |
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| Firefighters win Supreme Court appeal
Posted: 7/2/2009 1:26:10 PM |
I would really love for someone to explain to me how something as factually based as a Firefighters promotion exam could be racially biased. When the people taking the test have the same Fire Academy training, the same on the job experiences and training and access to the same training materials how can anyone claim racial bias?
Thank you for pointing that out. I've been wondering that same thing myself but in all the conversation and debate going on about this subject I've never seen anyone bring that point up yet. It's unbelievable how anyone can just claim racism on anything and people just but into it because they are so concerned about being politically correct. | |
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| Firefighters win Supreme Court appeal
Posted: 7/2/2009 2:08:00 PM | OP -- This is what happens when states and countries enact an "Affirmative Action" or "quota" policy. Up in Canada, people actually have "status" to fall back on...namely that 4 specific classes are to be given preferential treatment at all times in federally regulated offings...they are:
Women
People with disabilities
Aboriginals
Visible minorities
That just means...that if you have a class of P1 and the next person doesn't, then you're in. Period. Who cares about your qualifications being virtually non-existent...you have the designation so you get in ahead of the actual QUALIFIED people who applied. You just showing up with your status made you a shoe-in from jump. The job was already yours and the other candidates just wasted their time.
Yep. Nothing like promoting the inexcusable eh? Always nice to know that a more qualified person was denied because the office had a quota to fill, so they hired the status and not the qualifications.
Intriguing eh?
This case you cited is really no different, except that the whites were now fighting against discrimination. I always knew that in my lifetime we'd see the whites become the minority, or be discriminated against. It was bound to happen. I'm surprised it took as long as it did actually.
Makes me laugh too. I've been to several job interviews in my life where we were all seated waiting our turns, and we saw one of the 4 "preferred" classes enter the waiting room and 90% of us left on the spot 'cause we knew that not one of us would get the job if "they" were also applying. Our qualifications and skills were rendered moot immediately as they entered the room.
Quotas. Affirmative Action. Just gotta love 'em huh? 
Trainer: "So I hear that we cancelled a class today?"
HR Manager: "Yes. We did."
Trainer: "Can you tell me why?"
HR Manager: "There wasn't enough 'color' in that class. We're short one Aboriginal, and one visible minority. The whole class was white males."
Trainer: "Oh ok. I understand now."
HR Manager: "As soon as we get those spots filled, we can proceed with the class. There should be enough 'color' then. We have a quota to maintain."
EPIC FAIL  | |
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