Check out this great article by Charles Krauthammer on the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Ricci v. DeStefano case (also known as the New Haven Firefighters case). Here’s an excerpt:
The Supreme Court’s ruling on the Ricci case — that white firemen suffered illegal discrimination when a promotional test on which they did well was thrown out because not enough blacks did well — will have no effect on Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court. While overturned on Ricci, she is protected by the four dissenting justices who upheld the side of the case she had taken as a Circuit Court judge. Sotomayor was additionally helped by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s insistence on reading her dissent from the bench, as if to emphasize the legitimacy of her position — and, by implication, Sotomayor’s.
Ricci left Sotomayor relatively unscathed. But not affirmative action. Ricci raised the bar considerably on overt discrimination against one racial group simply to undo the unintentionally racially skewed results of otherwise fair and objective employment procedures (in this case, examinations).
