(Updated 1:53 p.m.) New Haven has lost the firefighters promotion case — and national civil rights law is being reinterpreted as a result.
That was the upshot Monday morning as the long-awaited Supreme Court decision came down in the case known as Ricci v. DeStefano.
The case was filed by 20 city firefighters — 19 white, one Hispanic — who said the city violated their rights by ignoring the results of 2004 promotional exams because no black firefighters scored high enough to be immediately promoted.
The Supreme Court’s justices, voting 5 – 4, agreed.
They sent the case back to U.S. District Court in New Haven, where federal Judge Janet Arterton had originally ruled for the city that it was OK to ignore the results.
But the Supreme Court didn’t give Arterton room to delve back into the complex legal issues involved in the case, as many observers had expected. Instead, as plaintiffs’ attorney Karen Torre noted as she digested the verdict, “it was an out-and-out reversal.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the swing vote, as expected. He also wrote the majority opinion released at 10 a.m. Monday. He made an argument that is bound to resound for years to come as lower courts and local governments interpret civil rights law in hiring.
Kennedy zeroed in on the issue that Karen Torre hammered home from the start of the case: That the city shouldn’t have ignored the results of a test just because it thought it might face a lawsuit.
The court wasn’t convinced that the test itself had been racially discriminatory.
Read the decision here.
The bottom line, according to top court-watching blogger Tom Goldstein: “The plaintiff firefighters won. New Haven violated the law by throwing out the test.”
Four conservative justices were firmly lined up on the side of 20 New Haven firefighters who sued and charged reverse discrimination. Four members of the court’s liberal wing sympathized with the city’s argument that under Title VII it had no choice but to throw out the results of the test, because no black test-takers scored high enough to qualify for a promotion.
In his opinion, swing vote Kennedy wrote that the city must certify the results from a 2004 promotional exam — and can use this interpretation of civil rights law to ward off a subsequent lawsuit.
“Fear of litigation alone cannot justify the City’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions. Discarding the test results was impermissible under Title VII, and summary judgment is appropriate for petitioners on their disparate-treatment claim,” Kennedy wrote.
“If, after it certifies the test results, the City faces a disparate-impact suit, then in light of today’s holding the City can avoid disparate-impact liability based on the strong basis in evidence that, had it not certified the results, it would have been subject to disparate-treatment liability.”
Kennedy’s opinion confirmed the general notion that governments can take steps to make sure that their hiring processes don’t discriminate. What seemed to irk him in part was the idea of changing the rules after a test has been set.
“[O]nce that process has been established and employers have made clear their selection criteria, they may not then invalidate the test results, thus upsetting an employee’s legitimate expectation not to be judged on the basis of race,” Kennedy wrote. “Doing so, absent a strong basis in evidence of an impermissible disparate impact, amounts to the sort of racial preference that Congress has disclaimed … and is antithetical to the notion of a workplace where individuals are guaranteed equal opportunity regardless of race.”
Fire union President Pat Egan claimed vindication. He had all along called for a “validation study” that would review whether in fact the test was flawed.
“In reading the decision, what the court seems to have concluded is that you need to base these decision more than just off the results,” he said. “What they seem to allude to would be the process that we advocated for at the onset of this, which was a validation review of the exam itself.”
Meanwhile Monday morning, at New Haven’s Goffe Street firehouse — where named plaintiff Frank Ricci works — four firefighters awaited the verdict on Fox News. They sat silently as the news broke.
“Wait, did they make a decision?” asked one firefighter, who was filling in for Ricci. (Both Ricci and Gary Tinney, the leading African-American firefighter supporting the city in this case, had the day off. Tinney works at the Goffe Street firehouse, too.)
A Yale Daily News reporter present explained the verdict to him.
“Good. Good. Good,” the firefighter said. “I’m so happy.”
The firefighters present said they’re under a gag order not to discuss the case.
“The mood here is fine,” their supervisor, Lt. Louis Rivera (pictured), said before the announcement. “Everyone gets along.”
“We were told by the chief’s office not to comment while on duty,” he added.
The case began in 2004 when the 20 firefighters, 19 white and one Hispanic, filed the lawsuit claiming that New Haven discriminated against them by ignoring the results of promotional exams when no African-Americans scored high enough. After losing two rounds in federal court, the firefighters convinced the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case; they found a notably more sympathetic audience there.
The case has become a lightning rod in the national debate over anti-discrimination law and affirmative action. It has also become Exhibit A in the case opponents are making against Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.
National civil rights groups backed the city’s position. They argued that the firefighters’ suit threatened to eviscerate laws — particularly Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — that afford opportunities for African-Americans to advance in fields, such as firefighting, in which racial discrimination lingers.
National groups opposed to affirmative action weighed in on the side of the firefighters, as did TV commentators and others who viewed this as a case of reverse discrimination. Some argued that in light of the election of an African-American president, Title VII and affirmation action are outdated.
When the Supreme Court’s justices heard the case on April 22, the Obama Administration weighed in with a middle position.
At issue was whether the non-black firefighters’ constitutional rights were violated under the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution; and whether, under Title VII, a city should throw out the results of a test it had believed it conducted fairly because it still believes it could be sued over the results.
For a detailed overview of the legal issues and personal impact of the case, by Emily Bazelon and Nicole Allan in Slate, click here.
Past stories on fire department promotions and the Ricci case:
• Minority Firefighters Vow Post-Ricci Unity
• Ricci Ruling Won’t End Quest
• Ricci, Sotomayor Brand DeStefano
• Firefighter Case Reveals Surprise Obama Stand
• Justices Zero In On Race-Based Distinctions
• Rights Groups Back Black Firefighters
• The Supreme Stakes: Title VII’s Future
• Dobbs v. Bolden
• Latino Group Backs White Firefighters
• Black Firefighters: Ricci Case Poses Grave Threat
• NAACP Backs City In Firefighter Case
• Paging Justice Kennedy
• Fire Inspectors Promoted
• Fire Inspector List Approved
• U.S. Supreme Court To Hear Firefighters’ Case
• Fire Promotions Examined in Supreme Court