(H/T – Gabriel Malor)
The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 opinion that New Haven, CT’s decision to discard the results of a 2003 fire captain/lieutenant examination because “too few” non-Hispanic minorities passed, and specifically none with a high enough score to qualify for promotion, violated the Civil Rights Act. Judge (and SCOTUS nominee) Sonia Sotomayor previously ruled that New Haven could discard those results.
The majority, Justice Kennedy (who wrote the majority opinion), Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Scalia and Thomas, avoided the Constitutional question of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Instead, they decided that, since New Haven could not prove that following the results of the examination would have made it liable under the disparate-impact (the unintentional discrimination against minorities) portion of the Civil Rights Act, it violated the disparate-treatment (the intentional discrimination) portion of said Act. In fact, it stated that since the lower courts, including the appellate panel Judge Sotomayor was a part of, failed to establish any disparate impact, they inproperly applied the Equal Protection Clause.
Indeed, Justice Scalia states in his concurrence, “I join the Court’s opinion in full, but write separately to observe that its resolution of this dispute merely postpones the evil day on which the Court will have to confront the question: Whether, or to what extent, are the disparate-impact provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 consistent with the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection?”
Gabriel has a lot more insight over at the linked Ace of Spades HQ post. Meanwhile, Ed Morrissey wrote that Justice Alito’s concurrence, which addresses “calculated omissions” from the dissent written by Justice Ginsburg, that “…(Judge Sotomayor’s supporters’) big sell — that she was one of the appellate court’s most brilliant minds — just took a body blow on this decision.”
