Legal News

Supreme Court Justices Spar Over Race

By Nathan Koppel

Racial discrimination ─ and the always controversial topic of reverse racial discrimination ─ were on the menu yesterday at the Supreme Court.

The justices weighed a decision by the New Haven to scrap a fire-department employment test because no blacks passed.

The justices weighed a decision by the New Haven to scrap a fire-department employment test because no blacks passed.

When only whites and one Hispanic passed the test, the New Haven civil service board directed all applicants to take a different test, prompting suit by white firefighters who had passed.

Was New Haven guilty of racial discrimination or properly trying to fight for racial equality? Lower courts sided with the city, but the Supremes appeared bitterly divided.

WashPost columnist Dana Milbank says the liberals on the bench "harangued" Gregory Coleman, counsel for the white firefighters, with Souter accusing the lawyer of "turning any race-conscious decision into a discrimination decision, and that equation we certainly haven't made and we're never going to make."

On the right, justices challenged the city's argument that the decision to reject the test was race-neutral because all applicants would have to take the new exam.

"It's neutral because you throw it out for the losers as well as for the winners? That's neutrality?" said Scalia. Here's a report from WSJ and one from the NYT.

Kennedy, the pundits agree, could very well cast the deciding vote. And that does not appear to be a good sign for those simpatico with New Haven.

The city "looked at the results and it classified the successful and unsuccessful applicants by race," Kennedy commented. "And then you want us to say this isn't race? I have trouble with this argument."

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).