Sotomayor was just upholding the existing law in the Second Circuit in the Ricci case. There was a previous precedent saying that a municipality that sets aside hirings out of fear of litigation wasn’t engaging in illegal discrimination. In other words, if she had ruled the other way, she would have been an “activist judge.”

It’s pretty interesting. The people who are getting hot and bothered about this case must have a lot of EMPATHY for white guys, and think that judges should rule based upon their personal biases.

-So I guess that means 4 out of 6 of her appeals court decisions remanded to the SC are now defunct. Rhymes with debunked.

-Just another reason to vote the conservatives back in 2010. You go girl…

Finally! It is about time that society realizes that the very laws that were enacted to level the playing field and diminish discrimination against minorities are not being applied in the way they were intended. No group of people should be discriminated against- including your average while male! What happened to just hiring/promoting the best person for the job?

Al, if the laws aren’t being applied evenly, isn’t that a problem with the law? Shouldn’t the legislature, and not the court, be involved in that process?

It’s interesting - conservatives seem to think that judicial activism is destroying America… unless it’s activism on behalf of white men and unborn babies.

The Sup. Ct. created a new standard in this case, this isn’t a referendum on Sotomayor as a judge. The district court, prior appellate decisions in her circuit and the other justices on her panel all agreed with the standard she applied. She was doing her job and applying the law as it stood at the time. All the supreme court has done now is to establish a new standard for cases like this.

As a judge she was doing her job, she evenly applied the prevailing standard, statute and precedents. Blame the law, not the judge who is charged with applying it.

Also of not, two of the plaintiffs in this case were latino…which serves to undermine the argument that she is a racist.

amazing Faithful, how you identify activism as the best person for the job regardless of color, and killing innocent children….how “progressive” of you…

ken, I hate to break it to you, but “the best people for the job” usually don’t even get into the door for an interview. Most people get jobs through networking. If “the best person for the job” doesn’t know the right people, he or she isn’t going to get hired. It’s who you know, not how qualified you are. What next, are you going to suggest that type of networking is unconstitutional?

Of course she has her biases. Everyone does. It is impossible for anyone to set aside their experiences and their “moral code” when doing anything in life.

More important is this particular case. The City of New Haven didn’t certify these results because they wer afraid of minority lawsuits. If the tests aren’t certified they can’t be reviewed. This ruling by the Supreme Court actually allows MORE information to be brought to light. If this test had a racial bias we will now find out. If it didn’t, then the people that did qualify for promotion will have a chance to receive them. This ruling is a win-win for ALL involved. At least the SCOTUS got it right…

Discrimination is everywhere against all colors and races. In this case, the Supreme Court did the right thing by correcting the earlier ruling. It’s a damn shame when a city throws out a test result of someone that studied hard in fear of litigation against them. Why bother to try to advance yourself through hard work if that is going to happen? Is this the wrong message to send to all of young America? It’s about time that the courts have come to their senses and done the right thing. This may well be the last good common sense decision that they will make for a while. Sotomeyor is racial bias. She drank the kool-aid.

This decision should not (except in certain Republican circles) affect her confirmation hearings in the least. Also, wasn’t it Alito who had all of his decision that went before the Supreme Court overturned?

The neocon nutballs were loaded up for this one no matter which way it came down. If Sotomayor had ruled in favor of the white firemen, she’d have been an activist judge. There was no precedence for her ruling otherwise. If she ruled against them, she’s a racist.

SCOTUS overturns over 70% of the lower court rulings that it decides to hear. I’m sure that the morons among the neocons are now redoing their math. Dr. De-Bunk, I guess that 4 cases out of 235 is now 80% somehow. It doesn’t matter. As I’ve said before, refuting misinformation to neocons only makes them believe the misinformation even stronger. The truth makes them dumber!

Oh, it was a 5-4 ruling, just like Gore v Bush!!! I’m hoping that the makup of the court will soon reflect more reasonable and sane thinking.

Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, and Alito are now activist judges. Where’s the neocon outrage? Where’s Sean Hannity’s mouthing off about activist judges? There was no precedence for this ruling; they are legislating from the bench.

I continue to be amazed by the hypocracy. The party that has made its stand against activist judges has activist judges, the party that is against deficits ran up the biggest deficits this country had ever seen, the party that claims the moral high ground continues to have its leadership caught with its morals and pants around their ankles. It is truly funny.

Dr.Debunk - Not to split hairs with someone I usually agree with, but I don’t see how we can vote the “conservatives back” in 2010 because it was their lack of conservatism that got them voted out. Conservatives would never have let the deficit spin so far out of control, emulated the Democrats in their love of pork barrel waste and failed to pass a constitutional amendment to protect traditional marriage even though 70 percent of voters wanted it done. But I get your meaning. I hope it happens.
Don’t get you hopes up as far as the New Haven case hurting Sotomayor’s chances for confirmation. She is a slam dunk, unfortunately.

faithful, i am not debating the “good ole boy” network….that certainly exists, but when you are forced to throw out a fair, and independently administered test for fear of lawsuit due to race issues, something is terribly wrong…

the test by all measures only looked at the firefighters knowledge, and ability to make decisions….race should not have been an issue. i believe this is where we disagree. The high score should have won, along with the rank achieved by those paying their dues and performing the relevant tasks…….

how is being color blind in hiring considered activist now jellio….? in what bizarro world does that mentality survive in…..and please don’t throw any rocks regarding the “morality” of our elected officials…we have seen plenty from both sides

” Sotomayor perceived bias”

You’re kidding correct? There is nothing “perceived” about her bias, the bias of PMSNBC or the Post Disgrace’s “editorial staff”. They are all far left nut jobs.

Not ONE justice agreed with Sotamayor’s summary judgement in this case. Buzzy Ginsberg stated “Ordinarily, a remand for fresh consideration [whether the City of New Haven in fact had good cause to act] would be in order.” But because the majority saw no need to remand, Ginsburg explains “why, if final disposition by this Court is indeed appropriate, New Haven should be the prevailing party.”

Good point, RHarnack. I doubt that you will find anyone among the many who have served long and distinguishe Supreme Court terms who has not had lower-level opinions reversed in the high court. And no, this will have no impact on Sotomayor’s almost-certain confirmation. For the record, I disagree with this decision, but it has little to do with Sotomayor and will have nothing to do with her imminent SCOTUS appointment.

As an aside — I will be glad to see Sotomayor confirmed anyway, but I will be particularly happy to see it happen so that we can quit trotting out a tired, totally irrelvant and out-of-context statement taken from a speech no one had heard of until the conservative press dredged it up to start an artificial controversy.

ken, isn’t that a decision that the LEGISLATURE should be dealing with? Yeah, if I were one of the white firefighters, I probably would have been mad if my test scores had been thrown out, but the city tried to make the best choice in a bad position. If they let the test scores stand, they would have been sued by the black firefighters. If you have a poorly written law, the solution is to go to the legislature and demand that they change it - NOT legislate from the bench.

And no, the difference between your and my opinion has nothing to do with race. I don’t see why the Constitution somehow protects standardized test scores.

boyd, if a white potential supreme court nominee said that because of his ethnic background he would be able to make better decisions than a person of color, i doubt you would call it “irrelevant”

good point faithful, but i guess i am hanging my hat on the fact that the tests were independently administered, and by all meausure color blind…for the expressed reason of eliminating the very controversy you and i want to avoid……leaving the legislature to change the way they do things by adding descrimination…..not very smart, or progressive

ken, it’s not only possible but used to be extremely common to have independently administered, color-blind criteria that still are discriminatory. The whole reason the law in question came into place was that fire departments and other government agencies that wanted to only hire or promote whites were using criteria that were on their face non-discriminatory, but that in fact made it difficult for blacks to be promoted. For example, fire departments would require high levels of education or employment that blacks were unlikely to have.

Times have changed a lot since then. It’s possible for most people to get a high school education, and community colleges are relatively affordable. So many people think that the ”adverse impact” part of the Civil Rights Act isn’t all that necessary. But the question is, do you want a Court to permanently decide that the Constitution ALWAYS bans those types of laws? Or would it be better to force that discussion into the political process?

Interestingly, people like you CLEARLY want this to be a political issue, because you’re talking about it in the context of the President’s nominee to the Court. I have to wonder if there wasn’t a vacancy on the Court, whether you’d be just as vocal.

i think i would be just as horrified if a white supreme court nominee had said I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a person of color who hasn’t lived that life. yes,faithful, i would be horrified…….

if a white male had said that, he wouldn’t have even made it to the nomination process…..because, its simply rascist…..law be damned, go with color…..not reasonable, and certainly i would expect more from her…and before anyone says this was taken out of context, she repeated this line many times during the 1990’s……including her writings

ken, I’d be just as horrified if a white male judge accused a city, who was just afraid of going bankrupt due to huge legal fees, of hating white people. That’s pretty much what Chief Justice Roberts said at oral argument. He tore into the city’s lawyers as a bunch of racists. I think it’s just as corrosive to see people as white-hating racists for just trying to abide by the law.

I think it’s hilarious that you think Judge Sotomayor is some crazy white hating racist, when her record reflects the opposite. She presided over several race-related cases, and hardly ever found for a minority plaintiff. In all of the cases she did, she was in the majority with Republican-appointed judges.

She only dissented in one race-related case, and that was to suggest that a WHITE policeman who was fired for distributing racist literature while off the job had a First Amendment right to do so, even though she felt the literature was offensive.

faithful, that is a very unique way you para-phrased what Roberts actually said…i guess i would say that i have the unique position here of not having to para-phrase anything Sotomayor said….

ken, I’ll hang my hat on Sotomayor’s actual record, which SCOTUSblog did a great job of analyzing here: http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/judge-sotomayor-and-race/

You can keep waging the losing battle over out of context sound bites. This is a judge who has a long, distinguished record. It’s interesting that conservatives only seem to make affirmative action and race an issue when the nominee is not white. If a John or Jane Smith instead of a Sonya Sotomayor had issued the same rulings, you wouldn’t be accusing her of hating whitey.

faithful, i suppose we are simply going to disagree, and i really want you to find something that the existing supreme court justices would have said that comes close to sotomayor’s offensive statements. you call it sound bites when its offensive, yet i seriously doubt you would have overlooked this statement if it had come from a white male nominee. That is the difference. so i ask you, who is being partisan here ?

Faithful,

How is this activist? It appears that the constitution was applied by the Supreme Court. No matter what precedent Sotamayor was holding up, the Supreme Court’s job is to hold that precedent up against the constitution and make the decision. The majority opinion here reflects anything but judicial activism. The only judicial activism I see is the clear and politically motivated 4-part minority opinion. This is a clear cut case no matter what your judicial philosophy, there is just no grounds for the dissenting on this on. It points out the need to weed out the constitution-disregarding wackos before we issue a robe.

I don’t see the connection. Two judicial bodies disagree on an interpretation of the law. The more superior court has precedence. That’s how the system works. It happens all the time. This says nothing about Sotomayor except that her opinion was overturned. I don’t know too much about this lady, but I do think that quote is used way too often to characterize her. A good and fair journalist would at least describe the context in which the statement was made.

jfmoyn i agree, and she will have her day during the process…….i want on of the senators to read her statement back to her with the following changes…. “I would hope that a wise white man with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a person of color who hasn’t lived that life.” I want her reaction to such a statement, and i want to hear her logic………

@mikew, today’s ruling had nothing to do with the Constitution. It had to do with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, and the City of New Haven violated a law passed by Congress. The majority decided that the law as written by Congress was bad policy, and decided to re-write it - NOT to bring the law in line with the Constitution, but because they didn’t like the policy. That’s judicial activism in a nutshell.

Additionally, a non-activist judge would have simply interpreted the law, then sent the case back to the lower court. Instead, the conservatives on the Court decided that they know the facts better than the lower court, and decided to act as judge and jury. Again, that’s activism.

@ken, do you REALLY want to hear her logic, or are you going to hold the same opinion regardless of what she says? It seems to me like you have blinders on and are incapable of judging her beyond that one single statement, which you’re dead-set on repeating over and over.

i sincerely want to hear her logic…….as i would imagine many do…and again, she has made this statement many times both in personal appearances and in her writing over the last 20 years….it goes beyond a sound bite…i don’t think i am asking too much, and i am surprised that you wouldn’t want some kind of explanation faithful…

Society needs to remove all “checkboxes” for race and gender for applications for colleges, employment, etc. One’s merit and qualifications should be the only thing judged for situations like this. If you are the best person for the job (outside of networking) and have worked hard to excell at your job, regardless of race or gender you should get that job. It’s ridiculous that we have to fear objection from a minority that will claim a test was unfair and seek legal action.

@pds, if your goal is a pure meritocracy, I’m curious as to why you think networking is alright but picking candidates on the basis of something like gender or race is not. Playing the “old boy’s network” is politically correct compared to say race quotas, but it hardly guarantees that you’re going to get qualified candidates.

A pure meritocracy is impossible because most people have some biases. Maybe you know somebody they know, or went to the same school as the candidate, or maybe you just hit it off with the person in an interview, even if they’re less qualified. We’re not robots focused entirely on efficiency. If people want to make choices based upon arbitrary things, that’s their choice. If those arbitrary things make it impossible for entire classes of people to qualify, that’s a bad thing. But that’s not what happened here.

The point is that our Constitution and our civil rights laws don’t force employers to make decisions entirely based upon merit. What they do require is that governments and employers don’t seek to keep entire classes of people off the job or out of the classroom. If equal opportunity hiring is bad policy, then let that be debated in the political system rather than the courts.

@ken, perhaps you should read the entirety of the speeches that she’s given. She gives a more than adequate explanation, but you don’t seem interested in hearing it. You just want to repeat one sentence over and over again.

faithful, i am waiting to hear her explanation as she has given none, except for those around her saying it was taken out of context…i have read her speeches, i have heard her say it aloud, and i am still waiting for an explanation….demonizing me for bringing it up does not answer a question only she can answer…….

@ken, I think the repeating one sentence to gin up outrage while ignoring her explanations has virtually guaranteed her nomination. I predict that Republicans will ask her about it at the hearing, and she will give a reasonable answer, but then people like yourself will insist that she either didn’t answer the question, or didn’t answer it sufficiently.

People are tired of the politics of resentment. The woman is extremely qualified, and nothing in her judicial record suggests any bias or prejudice. Her educational background is top notch, and her story is compelling. It defies logic to suggest that somebody would have spent several years on the bench and several more years in private practice doing solid legal work, and then somehow act differently once she is on the high Court.

please don’t assume to know what i am thinking faithful…..you predict many things, but i have asked numerous times for you, or anyone else watching this thread to show me her explanation…….i hope you are right, in that she does answer the question fully, and becomes a very thoughtful justice on the supreme court…….but you say the politics of resentment, like it was someone else who made the statement…..the resentment seems to be coming from ms sotomayor…….

I am liking her less and less.

@ken, now your turn for some ’splainin… what has Sotomayor said that’s “resentful?” At worst, the sentence you keep pointing to would suggest she thinks herself more qualified than a white guy, but it doesn’t suggest any ill will. It’s not like she said that she’s been oppressed.

In fact, she goes on in her speech to say: “I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.”

Honestly, I’d like to hear your explanation — something more than you just saying “b-b-but look at this one sentence.”

@faithful….I stated “outside of networking” i.e to exclude networking because of the biased approach that comes with it. Corporations and gov’t entities are under pressure to hire minorities due to the lawsuits that could be brought against them if they do not. To deny a prospective college student,for example, entry to a university who is not a minority but has superior qualifications (GPA, community service/outreach) over a minority is ridiculous. I agree you can’t deny a race an opportunity, but if someone who is under qualified is taken over someone with better credentials how is that acceptable. Forget about what race someone is, in my mind that should not matter at all. If we didn’t ask about race on applications then we wouldn’t have to worry about this as much. This will never be settled in the political environment since politicians tend to do what is best to keep themselves on Capitol Hill or what best fits their agenda.

“you REALLY want to hear her logic, or are you going to hold the same opinion regardless of what she says? ”

I would LOVE to hear her logic for her decision in the Ricci case, she offered none in her decision.

Her decision was then thrown out by all nine justices on the court, sure 4 voted the same way she did, but they offered legal reasoning for it, unlike Sotamayor, who just struck it down with no explanation. In the end, the SC decided that Ricci and others were wronged, and they moved to rectify that wrong.

Even Buzzy Ginsburg, writing the dissent, said there was NO reason for Sotamayor’s summary judgment.

Hmm… I do not understand how the lefty wacko’s can disagree with the Supreme Court here. Racial discrimination is bad. Discriminating based on race simply to avoid a law suit is even worse. The fact that she condoned racism as a means to avoid a law suit seems to demonstrate that she is a bit of a racist herself. We don’t need someone like Robert Byrd on the Supreme Court.

Maybe she should have said, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would just as often reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

Well faithful,I suppose you can try to minimize the impact of the question…I don,t believe I stuttered as you indicated in your last post, so there we are…demonizing a legit question is one way to debate I suppose.

@Si Vis, that’s so cute you’re blindly repeating whatever Rush says. The Second Circuit issued a summary opinion upholding the lower court, which relied upon a nearly identical Second Circuit precedent from the 70’s. The appellate court, in a 3-0 decision, upheld that opinion, then issued an en banc decision in front of nine Second Circuit judges where 8 judges felt that there was no need to issue more than a summary judgment. Today, four judges upheld the Second Circuit’s reasoning.

So a total of 13 judges, many of them conservative Republican appointees, believed the case was correctly decided. But by all means, keep lying. It makes her appointment even more certain, and makes the Dittoheads sound even more ridiculous.

@ken, at least you admit that you’re just a one trick critic who doesn’t stand for anything. I hoped to hear your insight, but since you only want to be here to criticize Sotomayor, rather than explain yourself, I’ll just assume you don’t have anything to add.

Ok faithful, keep deflecting any real question. I am not the one you should be looking to for the answer, I just asked a question. Let’s see how it plays out. I am sure your appointee will have no trouble explaining herself.

I don’t think Sotomayor is biased. Like Roberts and others on the Supreme Court who have rendered previous decisions which were overturned while serving on lower courts, Sotomayor is no different. She just happens to see a things in a different way along with the majority of her collegues on the lower court. They voted in the same way. The supreme court decision made up of four justices who have a different interpretation of the constitution than Sotomayor and her colleges was one vote shy of being a tie. It could have gone the other way with one more vote. The conservative block voted in the usual fashion, especially justice Thomas and Scalia (sp). So no matter how an issue is seen, the justices will usually vote according to their backgrounds and political experience. This is the reality and the reason why the Senate review is contentious at times.

Because, there was a time when the white male openly believed that he was the best. Minorities didnt stand a chance, even when they were more qualified. So, the field needed to be leveled.
It’s easy when you have never experienced descrimination to assume it does not exist.

It cements Sotomayor as a bigot who is vastly unqualified for the Supreme Court. (she didn’t pass the test)

Faithful,

No, the Court decided that the law was broken. The city tried to argue that the test scores were biased with absolutely no proof. The city missapplied the law, and the Court set a real precedence based on the constitution (a fact you ignore)…and I quote:

“No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

You are right, the court decided the way the law was applied was bad policy. But, you are wrong that it is not based on constitutional rights. If the civil rights act, or the way it was applied violated the 14th ammendment, then the court must apply the law to a constitutional test

I’ll say it again - this was a slam dunk for any judge with any judicial philosophy. The only source of dissent in this case is through a progressive political lens that tries to engineer society through balancing inequality with further inequality. It’s the most ridiculous concept, even small children are taught that two wrongs don’t make a right.

Frankly, I would like to see an independent review and study of all these tests that Blacks and other minorities are failing and Whites are passing, going line by line on each of these given tests to see exactly the questions that each group failed or passed to see if even the results are accurate true results because in my hearts of hearts, I feel that there is some kind of hanky panky going on with these tests. Also, to research, interview and study to discover all possibilities for cheating on these tests because I knew of a situation where there was much cheating going on through a trade program’s testing so that certain people could enter certain union training programs.

I also have heard that there is no way to go back and check out such a thing and I would like to no why not?

I place nothing beneath the capabilities of human beings and mankind, not even the capabilities to act in very artful insidious ways in a very organized fashion and when we are speaking about tests that are tested by means of a computer program and where other written parts of the test are not able to be reviewed by means of independent review, anything and everything is possible.

Well stated, mikew. But it’s really unkind of you to use facts when arguing with these folks, it will damage their self esteem. . . .That being said, brace yourself for Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor, because there’s nothing that’s going to stop it. Supreme Court appointments are - and should be - the president’s privilege. The sword, unfortunately, cuts both ways.

Two things here.

First, this test has proved problematic for many Fire Departments fort many of the same reasons. It needs to be overhauled from the ground up and should be only one step in a process of promotion following well defined guidelines. The Supreme Court dodged that portion of the issue.

Second, Judge Sotomayor may well be the “conservatives” favorite punching bag of the moment, but they are wasting what little credibility they have left, especially in the Latino community. They would do well to focus their efforts on cleaning up their moralistic image and outrage by dealing with Ensign, Sanford and the host of other “stand-up” conservatives of recent scandal pages.

MikeW, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed pursuant to Congress’s ability to regulate interstate commerce, NOT the equal protection clause. Several previous Civil Rights Acts, including the 1875 Act, tried to extend rights to freed slaves based upon the due process and equal protection clauses of the fourteenth amendment, but those laws were struck down as unconstitutional on the basis that Congress did not have the power to regulate private acts of discrimination. The white firefighters in Ricci sued under Title VII of the 1964 Act, which applies to government and private discrimination and has been upheld because it is grounded in the regulation of interstate commerce.

In fact, the majority opinion went to great lengths in yesterday’s opinion to indicate that the decision did not at all speak to whether the white firefighters had a Constitutional claim. Justice Scalia, in a short concurring opinion, said that they should have addressed that.

Perhaps you and Joe L. should READ the opinions and learn a bit more about the law before you criticize someone else.

Speaking of perceived bias, shouldn’t Norm Coleman have appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Injustice Roberts would have surely handed the Senate seat to him in a five to three ruling, which looks a lot better than the five to four he would have gotten before Sutter retired.

The Gang of Five, injustices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas, and Kennedy would gladly found a ‘constructionist’ way to make sure the GOP held that seat.

I would hope that a wise “ken” with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than “faithful” who hasn’t lived that life.

Faithful

You clearly have a grasp on law, and I do not.

Read the opinion yourself:

“This suit does not call on us to consider whether the statutory constraints under Title VII must be parallel in all respects to those under the Constitution. That does not mean the constitutional authorities are irrelevant, however. Our cases discussing constitutional principles can provide helpful guidance in this statutory context. See Watson, supra, at 993 (plurality opinion).”

He specifically cites Richmond v. J. A. Croson Co. - which was decided on the basis of the 14th ammendment.

The case did not directly appeal to the constitution, but was decided based on the precedent on former constitutional claim cases. It didn’t need to go there because the precedent was already set. You are indicating that they went to lengths to say they weren’t deciding whether there was a constitutional claim, and that’s just not true. The constitution is still the basis of the decision, and they used former court decisions as precedent, so how are you still saying that this is activism?

Your liberals justices are still looking like political hacks. Talk about being on the wrong side of history. This is like being a dissenter on Brown v. the Board of Education.

If this lady has done this in the past, what is going to stop her from inflicting her personal opinions in future Supreme Court rulings? She seems to think you can interpret the law as she wants whether it is arbitrary to the constitution or not. Reverse discrmination is becoming more and more obvious throughout this country; and it is because Judges like this are inflicting their personal opinions in the ruling. If this action keeps up I can see World War III starting up with race riots, etc.