Posted on 07/03/2009 6:45:22 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Supreme Court's decision this week in the New Haven firefighters case may cause problems for its newest prospective member, Judge Sonia Sotomayor. The court found in favor of a group of white and Hispanic firefighters who were denied promotions despite having passed the city's promotion exams with flying colors. The city threw out the test results because no black firefighters scored high enough to win promotions, and Judge Sotomayor sided with the city when the case came to her on the Second Circuit.
Appellate judges often get reversed by the Supreme Court, but this reversal could prove more troublesome to Sotomayor. She has made it clear in a series of speeches over the years that she considers her own ethnic identity crucial to how she decides cases. No fewer than a half-dozen times, Sotomayor has uttered some variation of her now infamous remarks, delivered in a 2001 speech at the University of California at Berkeley, "that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Her comments were no mere gaffe but a studied description of her views on the importance of race and ethnicity to her role as a judge.
In the same Berkeley speech, Sotomayor decried the "underrepresentation" of Hispanics on the bench: "we have only 10 out of 147 active Circuit Court judges and 30 out of 587 active district court judges. Those numbers are grossly below our proportion of the population." But as Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, noted recently on National Review Online, even if you want to play the quota game, Sotomayor's objections are dicey. Federal judges are lawyers (with rare historical exceptions on the Supreme Court), and only 3.4 percent were Hispanics in 2000, according to the American Bar Association. Yet Hispanics make up about 5 percent of district court judges and more than 6 percent of appellate judges.
Sotomayor's insistence that population numbers be the reference point, not those actually qualified to assume the job, is a clue to just how committed to quotas she is. For years, affirmative action proponents have claimed that they are not advocating quotas. But their reticence has more to do with public relations than policy. The whole idea that some racial or ethnic groups are "underrepresented" in employment or education implies that proportional representation is the goal. And if there are "underrepresented" groups, there must also be "overrepresented" groups.
In this game, if there are too few blacks and Hispanics who are lawyers or engineers or doctors, there must be too many whites or Asians or Jews who occupy those positions. And who decides how many is too many? Does race or ethnicity entitle someone to representation in every field and at every level? Clearly the city of New Haven thought so, and it appears Judge Sotomayor agreed.
The Senate Judiciary Committee takes up Sotomayor's nomination July 13. The committee should press her on her views about proportional representation -- and not let her get away with the usual demurral on quotas. Do our civil rights laws guarantee equal opportunity or equal results? If the former, how does she justify throwing out test results that don't happen to conform to her idea of what the racial makeup of the officer ranks in a fire department should be? If test results consistently thwart promotion of minorities, should we abandon testing altogether? What are the limits of her own preference for groupthink? Should we be interested in promoting individual rights or group rights, especially when the latter interferes with the former?
Every one of the New Haven firefighters who wanted to be promoted to lieutenant or captain took the identical tests and had access to the same study materials provided by the department. The exam had been meticulously designed to test the actual skills and knowledge required on the job and to have no cultural biases. Some firefighters succeeded and others failed, based not on their race or ethnicity but on their effort and abilities.
During the original debate over the Civil Rights Act of 1964, proponents argued that it would never be used to require racial preferences or proportional representation. Americans deserve to know whether Judge Sotomayor agrees.
The city threw out the test results because no black firefighters scored high enough to win promotions, and Judge Sotomayor sided with the city when the case came to her on the Second Circuit.
This is NOT true and I wish people would stop saying it.
It's bad enough when the left lies but when we pick up that lie and run with it its very disheartening. Don't be lazy. Do a few Internet clicks for Pete's sake will you!
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, RICCI et al. v. DeSTEFANO et al.Blacks and Hispanics WOULD have been promoted. But apparently, not enough per 'The Rule of Three' (from civil rights laws and discrimination, look it up) and this was the defense for throwing out the whole test.
But there's a bigger problem that just the way Sotomayor rules. Its how she does it, with one paragraph rulings and NO explanations or footnotes as her legal reference. Bottom line, she's a legal DUNCE and has been chastised by her own left leaning judges for her written opinions.
This 'wise Latina broad' is completely and utterly unqualified. Even for her current position.
An aside: In this case and others 'Hispanics' are referenced to and/or considered as 'white' and NOT minorities. YET the LaRaza race hustlers and their ilk keep saying they are "People of Color" and "Minorities". Someone better make their mind up pqd. You can't have it both ways amigos.
There will be no problems for Sotomayor. Republicans will assume their familiar positions under their desks while the non-biased media will accuse any of this racist’s detractors of raging racism.
So black firefighters did score high enough to win promotions?The city threw out the test results because no black firefighters scored high enough to win promotions, and Judge Sotomayor sided with the city when the case came to her on the Second Circuit.This is NOT true and I wish people would stop saying it.
Yes. Absolutely.
So did Latinos Hispanics.
What's also lost (never mentioned) in this is that were TWO tests involved here. One for promotion to Lieutenant(1), and a test for promotion to Captain. The Captain test was also tossed out by the city. In that one Blacks would have been promoted to Captain 'in the near future' (that 'Rule of Three' again). Both tests are mentioned in the Courts opinion(s).
(1) Ricci took and passed the Lieutenant test.
BRAVO!!!
"she's a legal DUNCE" BRAVO #2!
Sotomayor's The Enforcer nominee, itching to redress latino grievances. Americans will be paying with our freedoms for those Frito Bandito commercials. Racial-thought police La Razans are demanding "respect and fairness." That's latino for "shut up----close your mouth or we'll get physical." The disdain for America and its culture is nauseating. She and her crowd are collufing to exert raw power over the rest of us---to marginalize the majority---to turn the US into a failed Third World satrap. These biased people do not understand democracy is based on three co-equal branches of government...that's ample grounds for ditching her.
LAUGH BREAK SO MUCH FOR WISE LATINAS: “With the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci v. DeStefano this week, we can now report that Sonia Sotomayor is even crazier than Ruth Bader Ginsburg.” Ann Coulter
Around Christmas of 1973, a fellow sophomore approached Frank Reed, a leader of Princeton University's Chicano Caucus, to hand him a formal complaint she had typed up and to ask him to support it.
Sotomayor was head of the other Latino organization on campus, Acción Puertorriqueña. And after a history of fruitless student talks with Princeton administrators over the lack of Hispanic professors and staff, Sotomayor believed the time had come to lodge a grievance with the federal government over the university's hiring practices.
The written complaint, filed that April with what was then the US Dept of Health, Education and Welfare, accused Princeton of an "institutional pattern of discrimination" in hiring "Puerto Rican and Chicano" faculty, as well as in admitting students from those ethnic groups.
The strategy, Reed recalled, was "different than anything that had ever been done" by the two student organizations. Neither rowdy nor meek, it reached boldly for outside legal pressure on the university to diversify the campus. (Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
>>> So black firefighters did score high enough to win promotions? <<<<Not true.Yes. Absolutely.
From the article:
The city threw out the test results because no black firefighters scored high enough to win promotions
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