A Very Silly Decision Overruled

The USA's Supreme Court yesterday threw out one of the sillier judgements made concerning racial discrimination when it overturned Sonia Sotomayor's (Obama's pick for the Supreme Court) ruling in the case of Ricci v. DiStefano. The details of the case, if you haven't already read, concern white and hispanic firemen who are angry that the New Haven fire department annulled the results of a test to determine promotions solely because no black candidate passed. Sotomayor's ruling was that the fire department was justified in annulling the results of the test, because even though the test was not intended to discriminate, it ended up having a “disparate impact” on the black firemen.

The reversal of this silly and politically motivated ruling is a welcome departure from the USA's traditionally snivelling strategy of dealing with racial inequality. 5 out of 9 Supreme Court judges rightly concluded that “The city was not entitled to disregard the tests based solely on the racial disparity in the results.”, highlighting the overt discrimination inherent to the fire department's actions and Sotomayor's ruling. These judges, mislabelled as “conservative”, thus struck against the crux of positive discrimination: the 1964 Civil Rights Act's text on “disparate impact”.

The idea here is that if in any situation a minority (usually blacks) are not performing exactly as well or better with regards to their white counterparts, then regardless of the intention or the fairness of the test, “disparate impact” has occurred, and must be adjusted for. Whilst I understand the basic reason for this attitude; that certain minorities, as a result of discrimination, are less capable and less able to compete with white people even in fair tests, this is a dangerous and ultimately extremely condescending attitude.

At some point we must start treating minorities as competitive equals, and not as retarded children who have to be “included” for fear of a stomping tantrum. What Sotomayor was essentially abetting in her ruling on the case, and what the 4 dissenting Supreme Court judges were arguing for, is that black firemen at New Haven should be issued with different, easier tests to ensure that the outcome is racially proportional, and thus, politically acceptable. Sotomayor and the “liberal” judges want to solidify the notion that certain minorities cannot, and cannot be expected to compete on a level footing with the white majority in the foreseeable future. This, in no uncertain terms, makes them racists.