In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court has reversed the Second Circuit ruling in Ricci vs. DeStefano, the case in which white firefighters have argued that they had been discriminated against when a promotional exam on which no African-American firefighters scored highly enough to be promoted was discarded.
Reports the New York Times,
"Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions," Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."
Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor had joined the decision rejecting the plaintiffs' case. Said People for the American Way vice-president Marge Baker, "Sotomayor and her panel colleagues were bound by longstanding precedent and federal law. They applied the law without regard to their personal views and unanimously affirmed the district court ruling. To do anything but would have been judicial activism."
