Once or twice a year, I find myself siding wholeheartedly with the conservatives and against the liberals on the court (Kelo, for example). This is one of those times.
You promise a group of hardworking union guys, who risk their lives every day to keep us safe, that if they study really hard and earn top scores on this exam, by their union contract, they are promoted to Lieutenant or Captain. It's a written agreement with the union.
The firefighters who received the highest scores studied hard. Ricci himself testified that he studied as much as eight hours a day -- as a dyslexic, he had to prepare in a particularly time-consuming oral method, combined with flash cards and timed self-testing. His family needed the benefits and increased pay from that promotion, and he worked his ass off for it.
When "too many" whites did well on the test, the city brought in specialists to review the test, who found no evidence of any racial bias in the oral or written exams. But the Mayor's office came in, for purely political reasons, and badgered the board until they dismissed the results of the test. Ricci (and others) fairly won the promotion he was guaranteed, and then it was taken away from him SOLELY based on the color of his skin. Not even the city is claiming there was any other factor, and freely admits that, if Ricci had been black, the promotion would have gone through as promised.
I encourage everyone to take the time to read this (it's unusually long for an opinion, so grab more coffee):
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/...
Now, this diary came out of a comment to another diarist, who said:
I agree with Ginsburg's logic. No one is entitled to a promotion. All firefighers were treated the same because none were promoted. Where's the discrimination?
That is indeed an accurate summary of Ginsburg's position, which is precisely why it's ludicrous. Suppose a private company promised -- in writing -- to promote someone to Public Relations Director based upon a written exam, and then after the test was done, it turns out a black guy had the highest score. Then the company bigwigs said "well... we really don't want a black guy as our public face... so we're going to rescind our agreement and invalidate the test." The company in question freely admits that, if the guy had been white, he would have gotten the PR position. Do you really think this wouldn't be a Title VII violation? Would "hey, we were so opposed to having a black guy in the position, that we decided not to promote anyone" been "non-discriminatory" under Ginsburg's tortured logic as well?
OF COURSE the city's actions were in clear violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Ginsburg's dissent borders on racist garbage. I read it twice and was disgusted both times. Shorter Ginsburg: "Fuck Title VII. Firefighting has a history of racial discrimination against blacks, so now it's the white guy's turn to suffer." It is a spectacularly offensive opinion that left me sick to my stomach.
Yes, yes, the conservatives supported the firefighters, so I understand a healthy skepticism. But if you ignore the names of the judges behind the majority and minority opinions, after reading them, would you really side with the dissent?
--
Updated: Obviously, a short ranting diary like this is going to simplify, and likely oversimplify, the complexities of the case. The city's concern about being sued over a conflicting and competing civil rights clause, 42 USC 2000e-2(k), was indeed an issue of self-preservation on the city's part. There were also Fourteenth Amendment issues at play, though even in nearly 100 pages of opinion, neither the majority nor the minority seem to care much about the other factors. To me, it's not so much Ginsburg's ruling that offends me as much as her reasoning behind it. If her opinion had been the majority, that would have essentially endorsed and codified allowing employers to throw out the results of a promotions exam solely if they didn't like the race of the winner.