New Haven Firefighter Photo Source: Horace Williams
Basically in 2003, 118 New Haven, Connecticut firefighters took examinations to qualify for promotion to the rank of lieutenant and captain. Promotion examinations in New Haven were infrequent, so the stakes were high. All of the firefighters knew that the results would determined which would be considered for promotions during the next two years, and the order in which they would be considered.
Many white firefighters studied for months, at considerable personal and financial cost. When the results of such an exam to fill vacant lieutenant and captain positions showed that white candidates had outperformed minority candidates, the mayor and other politicians opened a public debate that turned rancorous.
Confronted with arguments both for and against certifying the test results – and threats of a lawsuit either way – the city threw out the test results based on the statistical racial disparity.
Petitioners, white and Hispanic firefighter who passed the exams but were denied, sued the City and respondent officials, alleging that discarding the test results discriminated against them based on their race in violation of Title VII.
Title VII prohibits intentional acts of employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin, as well as policies or practices that are not intended to discriminate but in fact have a disproportionately adverse effect on minorities.
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract the court’s empathy. But they had no vested right to promotion and no person has received a promotion in preference to them."
Justices Kennedy, Roberts, Scalia, Thomas,and Alito filed a concurring opinion.
Justices Ginsburg, Souter, Breyer and Stevens filed a dissenting opinion. Speaking dismissively of the majority opinion, Justice Ginsburg predicted the court’s ruling "will not have staying power."
Sound-Off:
Innumerable studies have shown that there is racism in hiring and promotion against African Americans in most U.S institution. Despite that, do you think that white firefighters that spend their valuable time and financial resources preparing for the test ,and did well, should be penalized because their African American coworkers did not make similar efforts? If you are against this verdict, why?
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Very nice blog post. Your post highlights how the USA has punished merit. The firefighters spent much time and money preparing for this exam–which does not get graded on anything other than the correct vs. incorrect answers. The results, purely objective, determine who gets the promotion. The correlation relates to merit: those that prepared did well, those that did not prepare did not do well.
If Ginsburg and the dissenters feel that New Haven was justified, how do they propose New Haven should handle such situations in the future? Should they just set a quota, despite its illegality being established years ago?
-W