Monday, June 29, 2009

Was Sotomayor Out of the Mainstream on White Firefighters?

Patrick writes, “A substantial majority of Americans disagree with Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor and agree with the majority of the Supreme Court on the question of whether or not white firefighters from the City of New Haven were discriminated against, according to a new CNN/opinion Research Corporation poll.”

There’s another angle to this, per Glenn Greenwald:

In the now famous “white firefighter” affirmative action case—Ricci v. DeStefano—the Supreme Court today, in a 5-4 ruling (.pdf), reversed the decision of a unanimous Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel (which included Judge Sonia Sotomayor) and held that the firefighters were the victims of unlawful racial discrimination.  The Court split along standard ideological lines (Roberts, Thomas, Scalia, Alito and Kennedy in the majority), with Kennedy writing the Court’s opinion.  Four Justices agreed with the Second Circuit’s panel, including David Souter, the Justice whom Sotomayor has been nominated to replace.  Several points are noteworthy about this decision:

(1)  In light of today’s ruling, it’s a bit difficult—actually, impossible—for a rational person to argue that Sotomayor’s Ricci decision places her outside the judicial mainstream when: (a) she was affirming the decision of the federal district court judge; (b) she was joined in her decision by the two other Second Circuit judges who, along with her, comprised a unanimous panel; (c) a majority of Second Circuit judges refused to reverse that panel’s ruling; and now: (d) four out of the nine Supreme Court Justices—including the ones she is to replace—agree with her.

Put another way, 11 out of the 21 federal judges to rule on Ricci ruled as Sotomayor did.  It’s perfectly reasonable to argue that she ruled erroneously, but it’s definitively unreasonable to claim that her Ricci ruling places her on some sort of judicial fringe.

Topics: race, supreme-court, firefighters, scotus, sotomayor