The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed a much-discussed decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s pick to fill a seat on the nation’s highest court.
The case, Ricci v. Destefano, involves 18 white and Hispanic New Haven, Conn., firefighters who sued to receive promotions they were denied when the city refused to affirm the results of a Fire Department promotions test. City officials were concerned they might be sued for discrimination because no black individuals and only two Hispanics passed the exam.
The firefighters filed a reverse-discrimination suit, which was dismissed by a federal district court on the grounds that the city was justified under the law in junking the test. Federal nondiscrimination laws presume discrimination when a test has such a disparate impact on minorities.
That’s when Sotomayor entered the case – as part of a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that heard an appeal of the lower-court ruling. The panel upheld the decision, which was overturned today by the Supreme Court on a 5-4 vote. The majority opinion, from Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, said the standard for tossing out a promotions test has to be based on something more than just the test results.
“There is no evidence – let alone the required strong basis in evidence – that the tests were flawed,” Kennedy wrote.
Some family advocates consider the Ricci case a good example of Sotomayor’s “empathetic” approach to judicial decisions.
Gary Marx, executive director of the Judicial Confirmation Network, called the high court’s reversal of the 2nd Circuit ruling a “great day for the New Haven firefighters and those who believe in applying the law equally.”
“Racial preferences were thrown out,” he said. “The identity politics that (Sotomayor) has time and time again practiced have been rejected by the highest court in the land.”
Ed Whelan, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, said he hopes Sotomayor’s upcoming confirmation hearings include a robust examination of her record as a jurist.
“What I would like to see happen,” he said, “is a good, thorough discussion of just what the proper role of a judge is and what the proper role of the Supreme Court is.”
