U.S. Supreme Court
On May 11, 2009, Idaho Falls Today posted a poll entitled “Should the government abandon affirmative action?” Seventeen out of 23 participants selected yes, with three undecided and three voting no.
The idea behind the poll came from a recent Supreme Court case that was just decided today. See the AP/Fox News story below for further details.
“WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that a group of white firefighters in Connecticut were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision endorsed by high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
The 5-4 ruling poses a potential complication to Sotomayor’s nomination, with confirmation hearings set to start in July. Already, supporters and critics of Sotomayor are seizing on the decision in an effort to defend their stance.
In the high profile, controversial case, white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., argued they were discriminated against when the city tossed out the results of a promotion exam because too few minorities scored high enough on it.
Justice Anthony Kennedy authored the opinion in favor of Frank Ricci and his fellow firefighters who sued the city of New Haven.
“The city’s action in discarding the tests violated (federal law),” the Supreme Court majority wrote Monday, adding that the city’s “race-based rejection of the test results” could not be justified.
The city argued its action was prompted by concern that disgruntled black firefighters would sue. But that reasoning didn’t hold sway with the court’s majority.
“Fear of litigation alone cannot justify the city’s reliance of race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,” the court ruled.
This decision, like many of the close cases before the high court, divided along its familiar ideological lines. Kennedy was joined by the four conservatives on the court in issuing the majority decision.
The court’s more liberal members joined Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s dissent which she read from the bench. “The white firefighters who scored high on New Haven’s promotional exams understandably attract the court’s sympathy,” she said. “But they had no vested right to promotion.”
The 20 firefighters — 19 white and one Hispanic — who were denied promotions claimed city officials discriminated against them because they were more concerned about potential complaints of Civil Rights Act violations than their performance on advancement exams. The white firefighters argued discrimination is discrimination no matter what color it takes, and therefore, the city did violate the Civil Rights Act in not promoting them.
The one last interesting twist to this story is that Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, Sotomayor, was one of three appeals court judges who earlier ruled that New Haven officials acted properly. I wonder how that will play out in the Senate’s confirmation hearings.
What do you think? Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling on this case? Should this ruling play a part in overturning affirmative action?
For your review, visit the Court’s website to read the full 93-page ruling: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/07-1428.pdf.
For the full AP/Fox News story, visit http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,529409,00.html.
Popularity: 8%
Related posts:
Let's have a new poll, alright, Joe?
:@:)
Loading ...
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
“What do you think?”
I am glad to read/hear that our top court finally has its head on straight for once. This was a no brainer! Of course, the city was in the wrong. You had better believe had the majority of the firefighters been any other color than black, the media would have been all over this story. Had the majority been “African-American” the NAACP or the “Reverends” Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton would been screaming bloody murder and crying injustice.
“Do you agree or disagree with the Supreme Court’s ruling on this case?”
I support the court’s decision (I can’t believe I just said that – wow). I only wish they would have taken the issue further and called for the government to abolish affirmative action – ruling it un-Constitutional.
“Should this ruling play a part in overturning affirmative action?”
Absolutely YES! The practice seems to be out-dated and appears to me to protect everyone but white, straight males.
Heck, the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States alone should justify the overturning of affirmative action. Furthermore, you have Hillary Clinton. She was almost the Dems choice for President and now she is the third female to hold the office of Secretary of State (the highest cabinet post). In fact, the last four Secretaries of State have been minorities: Clinton (female), Rice (black/female), Powell (black), Albright (female). Another high profile position, ranking even higher than Secretary of State, is the Speaker of the House for the US Congress and is held by Nancy Pelosi – yet another minority (female).
If Obama had chosen Hillary as his running mate, both vice-presidential candidates would have been females (remember Gov. Sarah Palin?).
So, do we need to encourage the government to end affirmative action? Most definitely!
Great decision. While I side with liberals on the majority of issues, affirmative action is one where I’m solidly conservative. Discrimination should be handled on a case by case basis and when its shown there is discrimination I fully believe the offender should be cut off at the knees. But using the shotgun approach of affirmative action where you punish everyone for the bad actions of my parents generation is grade schoolish.
Yes discrimination was bad in 20 years ago and more but overall that has gone away except in isolated cases. Its gotten to the point where now women and minorities have easy roads to success in many fields because of all the breaks they get. I either am or was related to two different female military members and both flew through the promotion ranks because of their gender because the military needed to fill a quota. Even they will admit that being a woman helped them tremendously.
I also recall testing once for a civil service type job back in the 90’s. At the top of the test it said in the instructions that females got 5% added to their score and minorities got 5%. So as a white male I was already behind many applicants regardless of any actual qualifications.
I really wish people truly would be “colorblind” even when the people they are looking at are white.
I worry that this type of thing is going to continue until we remove any bonuses for anyone simply due to race or gender. Pendulums tend to swing far past center each time they swing, and we are seeing a pendulum effect here.
We are never going to be able to see each other as all being the same, we are not. Things will never change until we realize that yes, we are all different, and that’s ok. We don’t have to be the same. That would be boring as hell.
What about reverse racism? I was flipping through the stations the other day and I think it was Entertainment Tonight I stopped on where they showed Jamie Foxx doing a tribute to Micheal Jackson at the BET awards. He was talking about Micheal Jackson and must have emphasized his being black at least 3 or 4 times. He then goes on about Micheal being “theirs” and that “they” shared him with the world. Talk about a racist comment. If Ryan O’Neil would have made a comment like that about Farrah Fawcett, we would have never heard the end of it from the reverend Al Sharpten and his clan. But we didn’t hear any negative news about Jamie Foxx’s comment. Reverse racism in full effect.
reverse
–adjective
1. opposite or contrary in position, direction, order, or character: an impression reverse to what was intended; in reverse sequence.
discrimination
–noun
1. an act or instance of discriminating.
2. treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit: racial and religious intolerance and discrimination.
3. the power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgment: She chose the colors with great discrimination.
4. Archaic. something that serves to differentiate.
racism
–noun
1. a belief or doctrine that inherent differences among the various human races determine cultural or individual achievement, usually involving the idea that one’s own race is superior and has the right to rule others.
2. a policy, system of government, etc., based upon or fostering such a doctrine; discrimination.
3. hatred or intolerance of another race or other races.
Whoever coined the term “reverse discrimination” is a complete and utter moron. Those of you using it in a serious manner obviously haven’t put much thought into the words that make the phrase. Added racism as well because AJ brought it up.
If reverse = opposite, then reverse discrimination is fairness / tolerance. The right word to use, regardless of who is on the offending end, is discrimination or racism. From there, you can go into specifics on which group is discriminating against which person / group. “Reverse discrimination” does not work as a buzzword unless, by retarding your vocabulary and molesting the word “reverse”, you hold the understanding that and are discriminating against a group because a group is perceived to be discriminating against your group when your group has historically been the primary discriminating party against the aforementioned group. Flip it around and it is still accurate. You can’t look up the words and get a definition that properly reflects what is meant, so it is slang, pure and simple. I dig some slang…but slang like this just doesn’t work for me.
What the hell has happened to our language? I get pretty pissed off when people refer to fallen soldiers across seas as “troops” too.
troop
–noun
1. an assemblage of persons or things; company; band.
2. a great number or multitude: A whole troop of children swarmed through the museum.
3. Military. an armored cavalry or cavalry unit consisting of two or more platoons and a headquarters group.
4. troops, a body of soldiers, police, etc.: Mounted troops quelled the riot.
5. a unit of Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts usually having a maximum of 32 members under the guidance of an adult leader.
6. a herd, flock, or swarm.
7. Archaic. a band or troupe of actors.
I highly doubt that 3463 troops have died in combat throughout the course of the Iraq war.
Marcus, I have to disagree with you about meaning of words. Though you are correct in saying that the literal meanings put together imply differently, just the fact that a majority of the populace uses these words and uses them in a consistant way says that the meanings are attached to those words.
It is (unfortunately at times) part of speaking a living language that changes with time and usage.
As far as the racism goes (I prefur your term though!) I think ANY racism is a bum deal. Be it against or for white, black, yellow, or purple doesn’t make a difference to me. I really wish people would stop refuring to it as race, but instead decifer between complexion (which doesn’t matter) and heritage (which is culture etc and can be enriching).
If we did everything that the majority of the populace (see: the media) told us to, we’d be in a bad spot right now. Oh, wait, we are, because a lot of dolts hold the media much higher than it should be held and are too trusting of the shit that is spat forth from their televisions. This isn’t a majority of the populace thing, this is the media transmitting the words of a few and creating a buzz about it. You’re being brainwashed.
I don’t see how you got Media out of that.
I was talking about people and living languages in general, not the media.
About the media….personally I think the media is nuts and needs to be rained in a little. Can we say “Media Malpractice”? The sue happy people would fix it fast. Lets put them to good use.
Now if that’s not OT I don’t know what is!
My entire original rant was about how the media is putting words into the mouths of those that watch it and spreading them to the “majority of the populace” through word of mouth.
Blaming the media for all of our problems is stereotyping just like any other kind of racism or discrimination. I guess some people need scapegoats to blame their problems on. As one who works in the media it gets pretty old constantly reading blanket condemnations of our industry. We do a few good things too.
I think that blaming the media is just another way for some people (note I said SOME people) to relieve themselves of any responsibility to think for themselves.
That having been said, I think people in the media have a responsibility to provide truthful information to people who believe what they say, and I honestly think that some of them forego that responsibility for headlines.
I think there are too many people employed by media type jobs (too much 24 hour news), and each and every one of them wants to keep that job, and some will go to great lengths to do so.
I also think that as the public becomes harder and harder to shock and awe, the people trying to get our attention are having to try harder to do so.
If more people would look, read and listen to the media as 95% entertainment & 5% relevant newsworthy stories we’d all be better off.
For example the media circus that’s currently going on over Micheal Jacksons death. It’s overkill, overhyped and over-rated garbage. I can appreciate what the man has done for the music industry over the course of his life, but it’s been nonstop coverage since his death and it’s a prime example of why I stopped paying attention to the news years ago. Maybe .5% of any news reported has any relevance on my life personally whether it be negative or positive. (and most of that .5% has to do with whether it’ll rain, snow or be sunny out that day) It’s all shoved in our face in order to grab your attention and gain ratings, plain and simple.
I can’t help but wonder why a pedophile is getting so much attention. Yes, he was a good musician when he was younger; but I think the sex offenses far outweighs anything else. There is some kind of discrimination going on here, I just haven’t figured out what kind. Maybe it’s just a sicko nation.