The United States Supreme Court over turned an appellate court decision on White Firefighters being denied promotion after passing the promotion test, because Black Firefighters did not score high enough to gain promotion also. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was one of the Appellate Court Judges that ruled the decision to deny these promotions was valid.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas agreed with the opinion written by Justice Anthony Kennedy of, "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 Ruth Bader Ginsberg agreed with Judge Sotomayor saying, "[the white firefighters] understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."
If passing the cities promotion test doesn't entitle someone to promotion, what does?
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Monday, June 29, 2009
Supreme Court Overrules Sotomayor Decision
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10 comments:
If someone who passes the test has no vested right to promotion, who does?
If they don't have a vested right in promotion because they're white then isn't that racism?
Does this prove Sotomayor is unfit?
It does to me.
When a judge is reversed, it calls their sobriety, wisdom and impartiality into question.
This case was important enough to be heard in the highest court in the land and SHE BOTCHED IT!
The "sobriety, wisdom and impartiality" of Justice Ginsberg is also called into question, but there is nothing we can do about her.
However, we can stand against placing another on the court how feels discrimination is acceptable, as long as it is against certain people.
We cannot end discrimination by just changing who is discriminated against.
"When a judge is reversed, it calls their sobriety, wisdom and impartiality into question." Really???
Just like Sonia Sotomayor each of the sitting US Supreme Court Justices have sat on a US Appeals Court. All of these justices have been reversed by the US Supreme Court. Therefore all of their sobriety, wisdom and impartiality have been called into question. And it follows that they are all unfit.
Cheesey, please show where the rest made any such egregious discrimination rulings to be overturned.
It isn't so much being overturned as it is what and why they are overturned.
Hard Cheese,
I can only find information about Scalia and Alito being overturned. Would you please share your source for the others? Thanks!
For me this has nothing to do with her being overturned. It has to do with her decision in this case being just plain WRONG. These men passed the test and were not given a promotion based on race. Plain and simple. How would you (I'm assuming you're a man--please correct me if I'm wrong) feel if you went in to get a driver's license, passed the test with flying colors, but were told that too many women didn't pass it so nobody was getting one. Completely asinine!! What if an Asian graduate took his/her college entrance exams but because too many white kids flunked, they weren't going to let that group of students into the school. Do you see the ridiculous nature of penalizing someone for the failures of others? Sadly, however, this isn't a far leap from where we are headed with many things lately.
Judge Ginsberg is WAY OFF BASE in her quote about the white firefighters. They should in NO WAY "attract the court's sympathy." Judgments should be based solely on the merits of ones actions and nothing else. I would question ANY judge making a decision based on whether or not they "felt sorry" for the litigants.
These men passed a test designed to measure whether they were knowledgeable enough to warrant a promotion and should therefore be given the promotion. I guess this case shows us more than anything that a law degree doesn't necessarily mean you have any common sense.
"And it follows that they are all unfit."
Apply this logic to the House and Senate and now we're getting somewhere!
Sometimes it helps to actually read the decisions. What has been forgotten is the sensational headline of the topic, that the Supreme Court "reversed Sotomayor." That's not true. The court of appeals gave a "per curium" decision (unanimous decision of the three members including Sotomayor) upholding, without comment, the decision of the trial court, which had said it was following federal law. The issue now is, did the Supreme Court hold that the federal law was unconstitutional? No! It skirted that major issue, namely the law. That's known as "judicial activism.
The White fire fighters did nothing wrong...however after reading Sotomyers comments included with her original ruling I don't believe she was exactly wrong either...she ruled against the white fire fighters based on the belief that the city was caught in a catch 22 and had a reasonable belief that if they didn’t throw out the test they would be sued under the civil rights act...what we have here is ambiguious law that needs to be straightened out by congress (the civil rights act is a good law but it was left vague and has allowed for a sweeping interpretation)
"she ruled against the white fire fighters based on the belief that the city was caught in a catch 22 and had a reasonable belief that if they didn’t throw out the test they would be sued under the civil rights act."
There lies the problem. She wasn't ruling based on the case but whether or not the city "might" get sued by others. A ridiculous argument and it has NOTHING to do with the white firefighters passing the test. It's not right to hold them accountable for a poorly written law?
This Politically Correct Judge should be "BORKED"
That's an odd interpretation of the ruling in question, Taylor1, considering that one of the judges that were part of a "unanimous" ruling clearly opposed it and castigated Sotomayor for deliberately omitting discussion of the issues involved in the lawsuit. She herself might not have been personally overruled but a descision she supported without attempting to supply valid justification was overruled. The city was afraid of being sued; this was an entirely valid fear (about 30 years ago, the SCOTUS ruled that a company could be sanctioned if the result of their policies seemed racist even if that wasn't the intent) but fear of a lawsuit is never sufficient cause to turn someone down for promotion because not enough people of another skin color had qualified for promotion. If Ricci was black and the state had denied him promotion because not enough white firefighters had been promoted, liberals would be joining the conservative celebration. But Ricci isn't the right skin color for this to be a triumph of anti-racism.
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