Today the Supreme Court decided Ricci v. DeStefano, which concerned a test to determine the promotion of firefighters. This case has been thrust to the forefront of the news cycle because
- It involved racism, and
- Sotomayor was one of the three judges to hear it on the 2nd circuit.
Now, as far as I can tell from reading various news and Internet sources the majority decision was something along the lines of: "SOTOMAYOR IS AN UNQUALIFIED ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT RACIST!!!" repeated for 93 pages, with Alito writing a concurring opinion to say that Ginsburg is dumb and smells. Apparently, this Supreme Court ruling is proof that Sotomayor's decision for the case when it was at the 2nd circuit was wrong and poorly argued. But anyone who has actually read the case history should be asking: "What Sotomayor decision."
You see, the 2nd circuit judgement did nothing more than say that the lower court ruled correctly. The three judges hearing the case, one of whom was Sotomayor, did not write any opinion. Rather, they wrote a short paragraph saying that, while the recognizing the tough decision the city faced, the district court decision was right. In fact, you can read the entirety of the decision right here:
Before: POOLER, SACK and SOTOMAYOR, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
We withdraw our Summary Order of February 15, 2008. Ricci v. DeStefano, 264 Fed.Appx. 106 (2d Cir.2008).
Plaintiffs appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut (Arterton, J.) granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment on all counts.
We affirm, for the reasons stated in the thorough, thoughtful, and well-reasoned opinion of the court below. Ricci v. DeStefano, 554 F.Supp.2d 142, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73277, 2006 WL 2828419 (D.Conn. Sept. 28, 2006). In this case, the Civil Service Board found itself in the unfortunate position of having no good alternatives. We are not unsympathetic to the plaintiffs' expression of frustration. Mr. Ricci, for example, who is dyslexic, made intensive efforts that appear to have resulted in his scoring highly on one of the exams, only to have it invalidated. But it simply does not follow that he has a viable Title VII claim. To the contrary, because the Board, in refusing to validate the exams, was simply trying to fulfill its obligations under Title VII when confronted with test results that had a disproportionate racial impact, its actions were protected.
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.
That doesn't sound too radical. In fact, it reads rather balanced. In one short paragraph, the circuit court points out two important matters about the case.
- It was controversial
- Precedent for cases under Title VII dictated the decision
Indeed, to call this a Sotomayor decision is really stretching an attempt to ascribe authorship. The binding explanation for the ruling is the one written by the district court. Sotomayor, and two other judges, simply said that they were right.
Some may say that with such a controversial case, Sotomayor should have gone out of her way to argue for traditional treatment of Title VII, to try to protect it from the reverse discrimination use that the majority opinion voiced today from the Supreme Court. But that is not her modus operandi. If you look back through all of Sotomayor's decisions, one defining characteristic becomes clear. They're all boring.
Sotomayor adheres to strict precedent, closely analyzing case histories and basing decisions upon cool and clear rationale. This makes her decisions long, dense and, to this activist liberal, a bit of a let down. Though in her dicta, she has often expressed her personal disappointment in the way the law goes, she ends up ruling for a strict interpretation of the law. This can be disheartening when, for example, she refuses to take a strong stand from the bench against the death penalty. But it can be good in cases like Hayden v. Pataki, where her plain textualism reads that Sections 2 of the voting rights act does not make an exception for felons, and to do so is a duty for congress, not the courts. In the end, Sotomayor is a strict textualist, but arguably for the left. She is no activist judge, for better or worse. Rather, her decisions come off as if they're written by the world's best law student.
So when someone talks about Sotomayor's decision in the Ricci case, ask them: "What decision?" All she did was sign on with 2 other judges, saying that the case placed the city, and the court, between the Scylla and Charybdis. But in the end precedent holds.
And when someone talks about Sotomayor's liberal or activist bent, ask them: "What decision?" While she has expressed herself somewhat in speeches and dicta, her actual decisions are cold, tight, and entirely based on fact and precedent, often describing and then throwing out her personal feelings about how the case should go.
And to this law student, that is a good thing. But to this liberal, well... we'll see.