Well, wonder of wonders. Justice gets served for firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut who were initially handed an unjust, ideologically-tainted verdict by Sonia Sotomayor because they had the audacity to be born white in politically correct America.
Many liberals/Democrats—including Facebook friends with whom I’ve engaged in many an impassioned debate!—seem to be so in love with President Golden Calf’s “empathy” pick for SCOTUS that they don’t care that the woman’s decisions have been overturned an embarrassing 60% of the time. Imagine using a mechanic who six times out of ten fails to fix what you brought your car in for—and then charges you for it! Or going to a doctor who misdiagnoses you six out of the ten times you visit her for an appointment—and then charges you for it. Sotomayor is the judicial equivalent to this, yet Obama and my Obama-worshiping liberal/Democrat friends consider her qualified to serve in the highest court in the land. (Maybe sign her up in major league baseball. A .400 batting average is excellent!)
Now chalk up one more overturned ruling to stain Sotomayor’s record: This morning, squeaking by in a 5-4 decision, SCOTUS overturned the wise Latina’s infamous Ricci v. Destafano decision. Here’s a report from Townhall’s blog:
Ricci v. Destafano [sic] Overturned
Posted by: Jillian Bandes at 10:14 AM
A decision by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was overruled by the current Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision this morning. The move probably won’t impact her confirmation, but will undoubtedly provide more fodder for critics who are focusing in on Sotomayor’s views on race.
The ruling, Ricci v. Destafano, said that 20 white firefighters who were denied a promotion after they took a leadership test were unfairly discriminated against; the reason the test result was thrown out was because no black firefighters had scored high enough to qualify. Sotomayor had previously ruled that discriminating based on race was acceptable in this situation.
Sotomayor’s controversial attitudes towards race were first aired when it became clear that her comments about “wise Latinas” were a common refrain in her public speeches and private comments:
I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.
The court’s decision to overturn Sotomayor comes at a critical time, given that her confirmation hearings will occur in just two weeks. The news media swarmed the Supreme Court as the case was decided.
Ricci v. Destafano was launched in 2007. Firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut had taken a test to see who would qualify for higher-level management positions. Only white and hispanic firefighters did well enough on the test to qualify. Because no black firefighters qualified, the city threw the test out, saying it was racially insensitive.
The firefighters who qualified had spent time studying for the test and spent hundreds of dollars on test prep materials. They sued, saying that throwing out the test results was reverse-discrimination. Sotomayor ruled against them.
Publius at the Patriot Room blog provides some more background and offers commentary:
SCOTUS released their opinion today on Ricci v. New Haven. They overturned the case in it’s totality - Kennedy wrote it 5-4 decision. Here’s Sotomayor’s opinion. The SCOTUS opinion is here. In part — “city’s fear of litigation cannot justify the refusal to apply the test.”
The central holding: “All the evidence demonstrates that the City rejected the test results because the higher scoring candidates were white.Without some other justification, this express, race-based decision-making is prohibited.”
Here’s the quick overview and context of the case before the SCOTUS decision:
Judge Sotomayor’s most high-profile case, Ricci v. DeStefano, concerns white firefighters in New Haven who were denied promotions after an examination yielded no black firefighters eligible for advancement. Joining an unsigned opinion of a three-judge panel of the appeals court, Judge Sotomayor upheld the rejection of a lawsuit by white firefighters, one of them Hispanic, claiming race discrimination and, as part of the full appeals court, she declined to rehear the case. The Supreme Court is currently considering the case, and Justice Anthony M. Kennedy is the likely swing vote. Among the questions in the case is whether the law should treat diversity in the work force differently from diversity in the classroom. Judge Sotomayor dissented in part in an earlier case, Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education, finding that race discrimination had occurred when a school demoted a black child from first grade to kindergarten.
SCOTUSBlog has an older writing on the implications of this decision. Their money quote:
I agree with Tom’s assessment that Judge Sotomayor’s detractors will have a hard time making the case that her work is anything but thorough and thoughtful, based on a reading of the bulk of her opinions. This may, however, make the Supreme Court’s decision in Ricci all the more important in the coming debate. The Court’s review of the decision will provide those involved in the public debate with a seemingly objective measure of the quality of her work. (Emphasis added.)
This case goes to the heart of the issues surrounding Sotomayor—her membership (recently ended) in an all-female club [which personally, never bothered me], her thrice-stated opinion that Latina women can make more wise decisions than white men, and whatever else is yet to surface on her ethnic and gender superiority model of both living and judging.
So, it looks like the President Obama’s “empathy” pick is not as wise a Latina as some thought. Question is, will this development have the littlest bearing on her appointment being approved?
Given the fact that our current administration and Democrat-controlled House and Senate have done more to destroy this republic than any foreign terrorist attack, I am not holding my breath.
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