hiSPanIC Supreme Court Nominee

[Vladd44]

I have to say that I am not impressed in the slightest. I found it even more annoying that she was involved in a case that I have been following with interest, Ricci vs. DeStefano.

In it, the city of New Haven paid $100,000 to the diversity testing firm, IO Solutions, Inc. to design exams to be completely free of any racial bias.

Unfortunately for them, even after taking such absurd steps when the tests were administered in November and December of 2003, white firefighters scored so much higher than their minority counterparts. Forty-one applicants took the captain exam, eight were black, no black made the cut. Seventy-seven took the lieutenant exam, 19 were black, and once again none made the grade. Two out of twenty-nine hispanics made the cut.

New Haven's city charter requires that they follow a "rule of three" which requires that each open promotional position be filled from among the top three scorers on the exams. But since there were virtually no minority candidates qualified according to the test, New Haven decided to do the right thing. Scrub the test entirely.

This made the whites a bit unhappy to say the least. SO Ricci and 19 others filed a lawsuit.

U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton who heard Ricci's case ruled against him and his fellow plaintiffs. In a 48-page judgment order, she wrote that New Haven's reason for throwing out the test was related to the racial distribution of the results. But she concluded that there was no discrimination because the test results were discarded before anyone was promoted. WTF, circular reasoning at its best.

It was then appealed to the 2nd Circuit Court (the court on which Judge Sotomayor currently sits). In an unusual short and unsigned opinion, the panel of three judges, including Sotomayor, adopted the district court judge's ruling without adding their own analysis nor the details which led them to their conclusion.

When the 2nd Circuit split 7-6 against a motion to have the case reargued before the full court Jose A. Cabranes another 2nd Circuit judge, wrote a dissenting opinion (joined by five other judges) which brought the case to the attention of the U.S. Supreme Court. Cabranes criticized his 2nd Circuit colleagues for rejecting the firefighters' claims without addressing "important questions of first impression in our circuit."

May a municipal employer disregard the results of a qualifying examination, which was carefully constructed to ensure race neutrality, on the ground that the results of that examination yielded too many qualified applicants of one race and not enough of another."

The case then went to the Supreme Court which heard the case in April, a ruling is expected in June.

One slightly unrelated issue I found of note is the fact that Ricci is dyslexic, An obvious handicap when it comes to written tests. Which makes his high score only that much more of an example to dedication and study. Most of these applicants studied for months and incurred out of pocket expenses for study materials.

[Vladd44]

One other issue I take with her words:

Justice O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

I wonder what the odds of a white man getting nominated if he had said the inverse..... I would hope that a wise white male with the richness of his experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn't lived that life.

[..Ñøßߥ..]

I will never understand the whole ethnic quota system, i simply find it racist. The people who advance in their jobs should be those that meet the required standards of the job, not on skin colour, white, black, brown, green, matters not. The politically correct brigade put in such quotas in a pathetic attempt to halt racism against minorities, when all its done in this case at least is lower the standards of the job and alienate those who passed through the tests. Bottom line, the attempts to prevent racism have likely cause serious resentment potentially leading to out and out racism.

[Canada Joe]

..not on skin colour, white, black, brown, green...

We gotta draw the line somewhere. The hell with green people! And purple people too!

[..Ñøßߥ..]

lmao

[Hitcher]

if color and 'experience' count for more than logic, i'd expect soto to defer to the 'wisdom' of justice thomas, as he trumps her on both counts

[April]

When less qualified white men are promoted to positions simply based on their race and/or gender it is called "discrimination".

But when less qualified women and minorities are promoted to positions simply based on their race and/or gender, they call it "equality".

I see nothing wrong with promoting the most qualified, basing promotions on merit, rather than race and/or gender, even if that means only white males will get the job. That simply means that minorities and women will need to work harder if they want to qualify, instead of assuming people will make special allowances for them and allow them to slack off.

Give jobs to those that deserve it and have proven they deserve it, and have earned it, but allow anyone, regardless of race and/or gender the chance to prove themselves. And pay those people fairly, based on what they deserve as compensation for that job, and not based on race and/or gender, meaning don't pay someone less for a job just because they are a minority or female. THAT is equality.