The court actually ruled for common sense yesterday, not for “white firefighters” (that sounds much too reactionary).
On an almost daily basis, I struggle to understand what is happening to our country, when four Supreme Court Justices can fall in line with this kind of thinking:
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing in dissent for the court’s four liberal members, said while she had sympathy for the white firefighters, the court’s decision ignored evidence that the city of New Haven’s promotion exam was flawed and that New Haven correctly responded to the biased results.
“Firefighting is a profession in which the legacy of racial discrimination casts an especially long shadow,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. “I would hold that New Haven had ample cause to believe its selection process was flawed and not justified by business necessity.”
Apparently, a United States Supreme Court Justice believes that:
- using a test to qualify candidates for promotion is “flawed”
- the sins of past white-on-black racial discrimination outweigh the benefits that accrue to everybody when firefighters are promoted based on merit
Hmmm. Well, by that logic, using a bar exam to qualify lawyers is flawed, too. Especially if it allows too many like her inside the gate.
Perhaps Justice Ginsburg would be less aggressive in promoting firefighters who didn’t pass the test, but are sufficiently dark of skin, if it was her sorry behind that needed saving?
Despite attempts to paint them as symbols in our desperate, obsessive need to continue beating ourselves up for past sins, firefighters are real people who fight real fires that kill and injure real people, including themselves, and destroy real property.
And any Supreme Court Justice who can’t put aside their ideological blinders long enough to comprehend that has no business deciding Supreme Court cases. It’s bad enough that this got all the way to the Supreme Court, meaning it had gone through years (since 2003) of arguments and lawyering:
The case dates back to 2003, when New Haven decided to fill 15 slots for lieutenants and captains in its fire department. The city contracted the test’s creation to a consultant company, who administered the test that fall. The exam consisted of a written, multiple-choice section, which counted for 60% of the total score and an oral assessment, weighted 40%.
Firefighters of all races had passed the test, but not proportionally. Of the 19 firefighters who qualified for a promotion, none were black, though two were Hispanic.
Troubled by the fact that the black firefighters had passed the test at roughly one-half the rate as the white firefighters, the city’s civil service board held five public hearings and ultimately deadlocked on whether to certify the test scores, which resulted in no promotions across the board.
A trial judge ruled in favor of the city and the 2nd Circuit affirmed the judgment in a one-paragraph summary order.
Ms. Sotomayor and two other 2nd Circuit judges said New Haven, in refusing to validate the exams, “was simply trying to fulfill its obligations” under federal civil rights laws after it was confronted with test results that had a disproportionate impact on minorities.
That’s an awful lot of layers of politically-motivated people on the public dime, right there.
By the way, one of the judges whose opinion was overturned by this decision: Sotomayor. Maybe some of her other decisions were good.
“Social justice” as a social movement could well be a fine thing. Though, honestly, I tend to doubt it, because of phrases like this used to describe it: “a world which affords individuals and groups fair treatment and an impartial share of the benefits of society”. Letting governments decide such questions is a recipe for disaster proven over and over again throughout history. Let’s not even go down that road.
But in a country founded on individual liberties and restraint on government, “social justice” as legal theory is simply hogwash.
“Perhaps Justice Ginsburg would be less aggressive in promoting firefighters who didn’t pass the test, but are sufficiently dark of skin, if it was her sorry behind that needed saving?”
That reminds me of Gloria Allred. She was talking about women firefighters and was asked if she would prefer to be carried out of a burning building or dragged. She said she’d rather be dragged because then she’d be below the smoke.
Yeah, right.
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