How does Supreme Court ruling affect Sotomayor perceived bias?
The Supreme Court ruled this morning that firefighters in the controversial court case about reverse racism were unfairly denied promotions because of their race. The judgment reversed Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s ruling that race wasn’t a factor, according to MSNBC.
New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the [Supreme] court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.
“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.
A statement by Sotomayor in a 2001speech became controversial after the media interpreted the statement as racist , she said:
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.
In combination with Sotomayor’s controversal statement, does this ruling further reinforce the idea that Sotomayor has a racial bias? In light of the recent ruling do you think Sotomayor is likely to be in the minority opinion, if accepted?
@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)