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Press Release: Supreme Court Ruling Erodes Workplace Protections for Minorities & Women. Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary rejects conservative critics’ attempts to link decision in Ricci case to Sotomayor nomination. June 29, 2009 Contact: Estuardo Rodriguez WASHINGTON, DC - Today, in a split 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court reversed the Second Circuit Court’s decision and ruled that the city of New Haven, Connecticut had erred when throwing out the results of promotional exams for firefighters when too few minorities qualified. A group of white firefighters sued the city claiming reverse discrimination in the suit Ricci, et al. v. DeStefano, et al. “We are disappointed with today’s ruling,” said LULAC National President Rosa Rosales. “The Supreme Court is actively rolling back the gains of the Civil Rights movement's historic achievements and returning to an era when discrimination was acceptable. The decision is a new interpretation of Title VII employment discrimination law which dials back workplace protections for minorities and women that had been in place for decades. It marks a departure from existing laws that were supported by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the Department of Justice, the National League of Cities and the National Association of Counties; in addition to all eight federal judges who had previously considered the issue, thirty-eight years of settled law, an Act of Congress and the sign-off of two different Republican Presidents. Justice Ginsburg wrote in her dissent that the Court’s decision “will not have staying power.” The ruling also deters employers to voluntarily ensure fair workplace environments and complicates non-discriminatory solutions in hiring and promoting employees. “A District Court judge, a unanimous panel of the appellate court, a majority of the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and four sitting Supreme Court justices all agreed with Judge Sotomayor on the proper outcome in this case. This proves that Judge Sotomayor is squarely within the mainstream of our federal judiciary. Ricci is a case involving a unique set of facts and an unusual intersection of legal doctrines; the rectitude of the Court's decision today will be debated for many, many years to come,” said Thomas Saenz, Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary member. Notably, Justice Souter, who ruled in the minority, agreed with Judge Sotomayor’s previous stance furthering the notion that his nominated replacement was in align with his judicial approach. Justice Souter’s dissent also refutes conservative criticism of Sotomayor since her vote would not have swung the balance of the court, and places her in line with Souter’s philosophy, who also adhered to the stare decisis doctrine of upholding past judicial precedents. Even though today’s split Supreme Court decision is in effect a “new legal rule,” the forceful dissent by Justices Ginsberg, Stevens, Breyer and Souter, gives strong credence to the Second Circuit’s efforts to uphold judicial precedence that existed at the time and that was the basis for its unanimous panel decision. “Today's close and narrow 5-4 Supreme Court Ricci decision announcing a new legal standard confirms what legal scholars and practitioners have been saying about the Second Circuit's decision in which Judge Sotomayor voted with the two other panel judges - that Judge Sotomayor and the panel's decision was in complete keeping with the Title VII law at the time. The Court today indicated that it was setting out a new legal test for an extremely complex area of the law,” said Maria Blanco, Executive Director of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity and Diversity at the University of California, Berkeley Law School Hispanics for a Fair Judiciary (HFJ) was formed in April 2005 in order to provide Hispanic leaders across the nation a platform and voice in matters related to our nation's judicial system. HFJ is an unaffiliated, non-partisan, independent network of elected officials, legal, civil rights, labor, academic and political leaders who care deeply about the impact that the Supreme Court has on the Latino community. # # # |