This week the most important news for the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor was the biggest news in the Supreme Court and American legal history in general. In a momentous decision, the court ruled on the case Ricci v. DeStefano in favor of Frank Ricci and his firefighter compatriots. The case came out of New Haven, CT when a group of predominately white firefighters were denied promotions because the promotions were earned by the passage of a test which no black applicants passed. Fearing a law suit based on the non-promotion of any black firefighters, the city of New Haven (John DeStefano being the mayor thereof) threw out the test and all the promotions earned from the passage of said test. The group of firefighters sued, and the suit eventually made it to the Supreme Court. This past Monday, the Court ruled 5-4 in favor of the firefighters.
The great significance of this ruling is that the scope of any employment based Affirmative Action program will be likely be reduced. Or, that it will be harder to implement such programs in the future.
For the upcoming confirmation hearings, this ruling is particularly important due to the fact that the Sotomayor presided over the case’s last stop before the Supreme Court. As a Federal Circuit Judge, Sotomayor ruled against Ricci and the firefighters. Some claim that the reversal of Sotomayor’s decision prove that her abilities as a jurist are subpar. Others claim that until the Supreme Court made its ruling Monday, Sotomayor’s ruling was correct with regards to precedent. Either way, this was not the first time the Supreme Court directly reversed a decision by Sotomayor. As the other reversals came before the nomination, it is unlikely that this development will pose a serious threat to the judge’s confirmation, which is scheduled for the 13th of July. Few if any Democratic senators have applauded the reversal, despite the fact that a majority of Democrats, a significant majority of Independents and the vast majority of Republicans all think that the New Haven firefighters were discriminated against based solely on their race. Wasn’t discrimination supposed to be a bad thing?