Supreme Court Overturns New Haven Firefighter Reverse Discrimination Case

The vote was 5-4. Is anyone surprised?

NY Times: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

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 court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

...In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

Justices Stephen Breyer, David Souter and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg's dissent, which she read aloud in court Monday.

Another important note to ponder for those opposed to the Appellate Court decision in which Sotomayor was involved was that according to Pete Williams reporting on MSNBC just now, "the Supreme Court did announce a new rule today, one that was not available to [Sotomayor] at the time."

A new rule for the purposes of overturning the decision... which is perfectly acceptable, but will be immediately tossed aside by the right in order to further malign and discredit Sotomayor's nomination.