[muawiyah]

The surname "Ricci" has substantial listings in the familysearch.org site ~ from the Caribbean, Mexico, South America, .....

I'd suspect that in just about any spot in America, except New Haven, CT, this gentleman would have been considered a "qualifying minority" if he'd made the claim.

[DainBramage]

In my experience in the Fire Department is that the minority applicant is very capable of achieving the same results as the white candidate, just not always willing to study as hard to achieve the score.

What they never talk about is that white guys get beat by other white guys on every single test too.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

” it is time to forbid the use of race as a factor in the government’s decisions.”

In the ‘80s, I went to school to become a computer tech. I scored 100% on all my tests. The school had new textbooks that were filled with errors. I was the one who corrected those errors, and got a letter from the school’s parent company thanking me for doing it. I earned the highest grade point the school had ever given. The instructor was leaving to go to the Lewis Space Center. He wanted me to go with him, and wrote a letter recommending they hire me. Guess what? They hired a black woman instead of me! She was 20% behind me grade-wise. All of the Aframs were hired, regardless of their grades. Then white women. I ended up working night shift in a sheet metal factory.

[IrishMike]

A little more on this story:

The test was designed to narrow the field among potential candidates for seven openings for fire department captains and eight vacancies for lieutenants. Forty-one applicants competed for the captain jobs. Seventy-seven applicants vied for the lieutenant positions.

The city yielded to political pressure from a vocal African-American minister and supporter of New Haven Mayor John DeStefano. The minister had been urging more diversity among managers at the fire department, a goal shared by city officials.

There is no indication in the court record that overt race discrimination played a role in the failure of the 27 African-American job applicants (eight for captain, 19 for lieutenant) to pass a test that had been designed to help them perform well.

“We are not unsympathetic to the plaintiffs’ expression of frustration,” the panel of the Second US Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Judge Arterton’s ruling wrote. “Mr. Ricci, for example, who is dyslexic, made intensive efforts that appear to have resulted in his scoring highly on one of the exams, only to have it invalidated. But it simply does not follow that he has a viable Title VII claim.”

[SeaHawkFan]

I’ve read the USSC briefs on this case. The firefighters are going to win big.

[junta]

I thought race wasn’t real, so how do they tell in this kind of circumstance? Has anybody asked?

[BenLurkin]

“The city had coded the test takers by race,”

WHY?

[mbynack]

Someone is pushing to remove racial bias from public jobs. I’ll bet Jesse Jackson and ACLU jump in with their support for this guy. /s

[Niteranger68]

It's interesting how minorities forget all about racial quotas when they are seeing medical personnel for serious health issues. Never heard of a black person demanding a black brain surgeon.

[SeaHawkFan]

Anyone interested in reading the filings in this case can go here:

http://www.scotuswiki.com/index.php?title=Ricci%2C_et_al._v._DeStefano%2C_et_al.