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The Audacity of a Conservative Court

Big Frick — Tue, 25 May 2010 03:01:41 +0000

Like it or not, you gotta love it.

If you read the papers today you would see that the Supreme Court ruled 9 – 0 in favor of 6,000 black applicants for firefighter suing the City of Chicago. At least that’s the way it’s being reported.

While to phrase it that way is not completely untrue, it was absolutely not the intent of the court, or to be more precise the conservatives on the court, to pass any judgment on the actual lawsuit.

What the Supreme Court ruled on today was not the merits of suit, which was filed after blacks claimed they were racially excluded from the civil service hiring process, but rather that the suit itself had all the legal elements necessary to be heard.

This suit has been battered back and forth in the courts for the last 15 years. It came to be filed after Chicago held open exams to fill a few hundred firefighter positions in 1995. 26,000 applicants took the test. Because the number of applicants so far outnumbered the available positions, the City of Chicago put in a “cut-off” score of 89 or better for applicants to be considered. This “cut-off” meant a large number of minority applicants did not qualify for employment. The suit claims that the “cut-off” was racially motivated. The city, of course, disagrees. After several court rulings the US 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals finally ruled the suit had no merit because the applicants had taken too long to file. It was that ruling and that ruling alone that the Supreme Court overturned today with their unanimous decision.

So why would Big Frick love the fact that the City of Chicago has to defend itself against a possible racial discrimination judgment that could reach $100 million? Most of you loyal readers know what I think of racial quotas in the workplace and in hiring. And for those that don’t let me explain; they suck. When Barack Obama waxed with his poetic flare and glycerin tears about the days when one of his daughters was very ill he did not mention that they took her to a black doctor, or had her cared for by a black nurse. No, the Obama’s sought out the most qualified medical personnel money could buy. Shouldn’t the rest of us have the same option? Shouldn’t the citizens of Chicago be given the best, most qualified applicants to protect their life and property? Not according to Congress. In the law passed in 1991 by Congress employers are not allowed to use an "employment practice" that had a "disparate impact on the basis of race." By those standards the Obama family should have been prevented, as employers, from seeking a doctor based on his superior knowledge of their daughter’s malady and forced to see a minority doctor who, for all intents and purposes, could have provided at least some level of medical care.

I love the court’s decision not because I agree with the lawsuit, but because the conservatives on the court did their job. They openly admitted that they disagree with the law as it is written. But they ruled on the law and not on their personal life experiences or their pie in the sky interpretation of how things should be.

Commenting on the decision Justice Antonin Scalia (one of my personal hero’s) said the law creates "practical problems for employers" and can "produce puzzling results." He concluded, however, "it is a problem for Congress, not one that federal courts can fix."

And that is exactly the point. The Supreme Court is not there to create law; it is there to uphold the constitution. If the law is flawed, as this law obviously is, it is a job for the “law makers” to fix, not the court.

This case may well end up back before the high court to rule on the law’s constitutionality, much like the case recently heard regarding the New Haven firefighters. But that was not the question before the court today. The question today was, is there currently a law that allows these applicants to file suit. Every single conservative on the court knows this is a bad law. But every single conservative on the court did his job and ruled yes.

The conservative justices did what they were entrusted to do. If you don’t like the law than take it up with the liberal nit wits that made it a law.

Your opportunity to be heard is coming in November.

Keeping An Eye On The Court

Big Frick — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 01:02:00 +0000

Headlines scream “Supreme Court seems split on decision regarding race”. My only response “So what else is new?”

The case of the white firefighters from New Haven, Connecticut versus the city that employs them is underway before the justices of the Supreme Court. You may recall that during the most recent advancement test to fill fourteen spots in the higher ranks of the department thirteen of the highest scores went to white firefighters with the only other one being Hispanic. After the test was completed and graded it was decided that because no blacks had scored well enough to earn a promotion the entire test would be thrown out and nobody would be promoted until a new test could be devised.

This case holds tremendous impact not only for the firefighters involved but for just about every other race based program in the country. When it comes to setting legal precedent this one will be a doozie. But when it comes to getting a split decision out of the current Supreme Court this case is no different than most of the others.

Court watchers are already trying to figure out what the decision will be long before its anticipated publish date later this July. Most can discern the judges leanings based on the questions they ask and the retorts they make to the attorney’s answers.

As one would expect the very liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg seems sympathetic to the city of New Haven. She asked leading questions of the attorneys that seemed to tie the city’s decision with that of other municipalities that were forced a number of years ago to alter their strength and physical fitness tests to accommodate women. The problem with the justice’s argument is that this has nothing to do with physical strength but rather mental acuity. It is not a test to decide if you get to be on the fire department but rather if you get to be promoted within the fire department. If in fact this legal argument holds up the question that will remain unanswered is; just how low do you want to set the standards for advancement and what impact will that have on the command structure of the department?

This entire situation was brought about because the New Haven city council forgot what their main focus should be. They put the health and safety of the New Haven citizenry second to the political correctness of racially biased affirmative action. The test would have never been a problem if enough blacks had scored in the top fourteen.

The hard work and studying done by the successful firefighters was completely disregarded for one reason and one reason only. It is because they were white. There was no racial bias against the black firefighters. It’s not like they were given a test harder or more complex than the white firefighters. The ONLY racial bias in this entire process is against those firefighters who happen to be Caucasian.

I understand the disappointment felt by all the other firefighters who were not successful on the test, both black and white. They had their chance and they failed. They will now likely have to wait years before this kind of chance comes around again. It’s disappointing but it is not unfair.

While the court’s decision may end up being split it is to the great benefit of the Constitution that we also have conservative constitutionalists on the bench as well.

Justice Anton Scalia has brought some rather harsh questioning to the city’s attorney’s regarding their claim that the decision was race neutral. City Attorney Christopher Meade claimed that because everybody would have to take a new test that made it race neutral. Justice Scalia responded with the sarcastic response “It’s neutral because you throw it out for the losers as well as for the winners? That’s neutrality?” I love that guy.

Chief Justice John Roberts has already shown his constitutional interpretation when he voted down the 2007 school segregation plan. The majority of the court sided with Justice Roberts and said any system that based school assignments on race is unconstitutional. Justice Anthony Kennedy who also voted down the school plan seems to have a problem with the constitutionality of the New Haven decision as well.

It seems pretty simple to my simple mind. If blacks can no longer be denied employment or promotions based solely on race than it would be a constitutional travesty to say it was okay to do so against whites.

As I’ve said before, constitutionally that pesky equal protection under the law trumps political correctness.

That Pesky Equal Protection

Big Frick — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 01:34:00 +0000

When is racism not racism? I guess it all depends on the race being ismed.

The US Supreme Court is set to hear the case of Ricci et al v. New Have Connecticut to decide if denying promotions to qualified white folks because of their lack of minority status is Constitutional.

Ricci suffers from an unfortunate lack of pigment in his skin color. He is a Caucasian firefighter in New Haven and has spent months studying and listening to study tapes to prepare for the fire department’s promotion test. He spent his evenings, free days and even his drive to work getting ready for this once in a decade opportunity to move up to a command rank within the department.

His hard work paid off as he earned the top score out of everyone that took the test. Being the top guy surely would secure his future and give him his rightful place amongst the commanders, right? Not so fast their white guy.

There were 15 vacancies for upper ranks available to be filled. It turns out that 14 out of the top 15 scores from the test were white guys. The other one was Hispanic. If the department used the test scores as the deciding factor there would be no blacks promoted this time around. Not because of their color, but because no black proved to be as qualified as these non-blacks. It doesn’t make the blacks who took the test bad firefighters. But denying them a promotion because of their test results isn’t racist either.

After four racially charged city council meetings it was decided that as no blacks would be promoted, nobody should be promoted. The city’s civil service board rejected the test results and Ricci along with the other 14 qualified candidates were denied their hard earned promotions.

Barack Obama, the President of all the people, sided with the city and said that the test should be disallowed because it had “gross exclusionary effects on minorities”. They went on to site that while blacks make up 31% of the city’s firefighters, they only account for 15% of the officers. What that statistic has to do with Ricci and the other 14 is beyond me. I guess what they’re saying is that if 7 of the qualifying candidates would have been black Ricci would have been qualified, but because the blacks blew the test Ricci was not.

Lawyers for the firefighters claim the city violated the firefighters Constitutional right to equal protection under the law as well as the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The president of the NAACP disagreed stating that because fire departments have been “the preserve of white males” in the past it is only fair to unlevel the playing field in the favor of blacks.

A similar situation in Chicago back in 1986 just had the city pay off $6 million last month to firefighters who had their test scores disallowed because they are white.

It’s got to be tough for blacks having depended on the Civil Rights Act to advance their cause for these past 55 years to now have that pesky equal rights constitutional protection make the act their adversary. It also seems pretty disingenuous to have a black man elected President of the United States trying to make an issue out of white oppression.

The Obama administration is lobbying the Supreme Court to send the case back to Connecticut for obvious reasons. A ruling in favor of the white guys will have far reaching impact on the racially unfair practice of affirmative action in almost every other venue in the country.

No one is denying a history of black oppression, but to claim that history is still relevant justification to racially prejudice hiring and promotions is taking a huge step back not forward.
The president just made the headlines discussing his daughter’s past medical problems with meningitis and commended the dedicated nurses and medical professionals that helped her recover and assisted the family through the ordeal. I wonder if he was looking for a black doctor or the most qualified doctor to treat her.

Maybe someone should ask.