Supreme Court to Consider Firefighters’ Reverse Bias Claims
The U.S. Supreme Court will consider later this month when the government can use race as a factor in its hiring and promotion decisions.
The reverse discrimination suit, Ricci v. DeStefano, was filed by white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who passed a promotional exam, only to have the results thrown out because no blacks got top scores, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The plaintiffs claim violation of constitutional equal protection guarantees and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, according to the Los Angeles Times.
The case is scheduled for argument on April 22. It will give the Supreme Court under the leadership of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. an opportunity to issue its first major decision on racial discrimination in employment, the New York Times reports.
The Los Angeles Times says the court’s decision could change hiring and promotion policies for public employees—and possibly for private workers.
In a 2007 case involving education, Roberts wrote the majority opinion holding that public schools improperly used race to decide school assignments. “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Roberts wrote.
The Obama administration filed a brief supporting New Haven, saying the city could throw out the test results if they had “gross exclusionary effects on minorities,” according to the Los Angeles Times. About 37 percent of New Haven’s population is black, according to 2000 censure figures. But 32 percent of the city’s entry-level firefighters are black and 15 percent of supervisory firefighters are black, according to 2007 figures.
A federal judge sided with the city, saying no one was harmed since no one was promoted, the New York Times story says. A panel of the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, and the en banc appeals court refused a rehearing on a 7-6 vote.
The case highlights a conflict in Title VII that bars employers from using hiring and promotional standards that have a disparate impact on the basis of race, the Los Angeles Times story says. Workplace Prof Blog puts the conundrum this way: “Is a decision not to create a disparate impact really race discrimination in disguise?”
