The dissenting opinion from Ginsburg:
The "race-based" discrimination she's denying there refers to the white candidates having their test results discarded. You know, the ones who filed the lawsuit? I.e., Ricci?
Here's some fuller quotes:
"the Court pretends that “[t]he City rejected the test results solely because the higher scoring candidates were white.” Ante, at 20. That pretension, essential to the Court’s disposition, ignores substantial evidence of multiple flaws in the tests New Haven used. The Court similarly fails to acknowledge thebetter tests used in other cities, which have yielded lessracially skewed outcomes."
"New Haven, a city in whichAfrican-Americans and Hispanics account for nearly 60percent of the population, must today be served—as it wasin the days of undisguised discrimination—by a fire de-partment in which members of racial and ethnic minori-ties are rarely seen in command positions."
"Firefighting is a profession in which thelegacy of racial discrimination casts an especially long shadow."
"Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR) report finding racialdiscrimination in municipal employment even “more pervasive than in the private sector.” H. R. Rep. No. 92– 238, p. 17 (1971). According to the report, overt racismwas partly to blame, but so too was a failure on the part of municipal employers to apply merit-based employment principles. In making hiring and promotion decisions, public employers often “rel[ied] on criteria unrelated to job performance,” including nepotism or political patronage. 118 Cong. Rec. 1817 (1972). Such flawed selection meth-ods served to entrench preexisting racial hierarchies. The USCCR report singled out police and fire departments for having “arriers to equal employment . . . greater . . . than in any other area of State or local government,” withAfrican-Americans “hold[ing] almost no positions in the officer ranks.”"
"The city of New Haven (City) was no exception. In the early 1970’s, African-Americans and Hispanics composed 30 percent of New Haven’s population, but only 3.6 per-cent of the City’s 502 firefighters. The racial disparity inthe officer ranks was even more pronounced: “[O]f the 107officers in the Department only one was black, and he heldthe lowest rank above private.”"
"Among entry-level firefighters, minorities are still underrepre-sented, but not starkly so. As of 2003, African-Americans and Hispanics constituted 30 percent and 16 percent of the City’s firefighters, respectively. In supervisory positions,however, significant disparities remain. Overall, the senior officer ranks (captain and higher) are nine percent African-American and nine percent Hispanic. Only one ofthe Department’s 21 fire captains is African-American.See App. in No. 06–4996–cv (CA2), p. A1588 (hereinafter CA2 App.). It is against this backdrop of entrenched inequality that the promotion process at issue in thislitigation should be assessed."
"Dr. Christo-pher Hornick, an industrial/organizational psychology consultant with 25 years’ experience with police and fire-fighter testing, described the exam results as having“relatively high adverse impact.”"
"Hornick downplayed the notion of “facial neu-trality.” It was more important, he advised the CSB, toconsider “the broader issue of how your procedures and your rules and the types of tests that you are using arecontributing to the adverse impact.”"
"Janet Helms, a professor of counseling psychology atBoston College, observed that two-thirds of the incumbent fire officers who submitted job analyses to IOS during the exam design phase were Caucasian. Members of different racial groups, Helms told the CSB, sometimes do their jobs in different ways, “often because the experiences that are open to white male firefighters are not open to members of these other under-represented groups.” CA2 App. A1063–A1064. The heavy reliance on job analyses from whitefirefighters, she suggested, may thus have introduced an element of bias."
"(“Upon close reading of the exams, thequestions themselves would appear to test a candidate’s ability to memorize textbooks but not necessarily to iden-tify solutions to real problems on the fire ground.”"
"In codifying the Griggs and Albemarle instructions, Congress declared unambiguously that selection criteriaoperating to the disadvantage of minority group members can be retained only if justified by business necessity.5 In keeping with Congress’ design, employers who reject such criteria due to reasonable doubts about their reliability can hardly be held to have engaged in discrimination“because of” race."
"Indeed, the sole basis for the Court’s peremptory ruling is the demonstrably false pretension that respondents showed “nothing more” than “a signifi-cant statistical disparity.”"
"Applying what I view as the proper standard to therecord thus far made, I would hold that New Haven had ample cause to believe its selection process was flawed and not justified by business necessity."
"Alerted to this stark disparity, the CSB heard expert and lay testimony, presented at public hear-ings, in an endeavor to ascertain whether the exams were fair and consistent with business necessity. Its investiga-tion revealed grave cause for concern about the exam process itself and the City’s failure to consider alternativeselection devices.
Chief among the City’s problems was the very nature of the tests for promotion. In choosing to use written andoral exams with a 60/40 weighting, the City simply ad-hered to the union’s preference and apparently gave no consideration to whether the weighting was likely to identify the most qualified fire-officer candidates. There is strong reason to think it was not."
"Given these unfavorable appraisals, it is unsurprising that most municipal employers do not evaluate their fire-officer candidates as New Haven does."
"Testimony beforethe CSB also raised questions concerning unequal access to study materials, see id., at A857–A861, and the poten-tial bias introduced by relying principally on job analyses from nonminority fire officers to develop the exams,"
"to study materials, see id., at A857–A861, and the poten-tial bias introduced by relying principally on job analyses from nonminority fire officers to develop the exams,"
Don't blame me. Blame the US Supreme Court.
Isn't that what I've been doing? And why would those two options be exclusive anyway?
You're assuming none of the black firefighters had relatives, friends, or other associates involved in firefighting who might assist them.
You're also assuming all the white firefighters had relatives, friends, or other associates involved in firefighting who might assist them.
As discussed in the quoted material from Ginsburg's dissent, there is an extreme racial disparity in the officer ranks in the New Haven fire department (this was a test for promotion to officer status). This is an elementary fact of the case, known to anyone who cares to learn the basics. No assumptions on my part are involved.
How is that applicable to the Supreme Court ruling in favour of those white firefighters?
It's applicable to the analogous situation I was using to illustrate why the test is unfair, and which you are so far entirely unable to address, responding instead with bizarre accusations of "hearsay." Weak evasion, I'd say.
My conclusions are the facts.
That sentence doesn't make sense. You appear to be confused about what constitutes a "conclusion." Or perhaps a "fact." Either way.
My beliefs = facts.
Riiiiight. Perhaps you've heard of the phrase "magical thinking?"
If so, you should be aware that it's generally considered a character flaw.
I concluded that more people passed.
Sure you wouldn't like to edit out that response and start over again?
Actually they failed a difficult test because they were crap.
How do you know the test was difficult, or that the applicants were unqualified?
They pass in other places because: the tests in other places are "better" as one judge said; the tests in other places are easier; or the black firefighters in other places are smarter.
"Better" here means "less racially biased." Are you no longer excluding that possibility?
You draw whatever conclusions you like, but you're working on a straw man there.
You say that, but I have yet to see you disclaim any of the elements there.
The US Supreme Court disagrees with you.
So what?
I mean the US Supreme Court found not one shred of evidence hinting at any sort of unfairness.
Not true. In the first place, the US Supreme Court is not a police agency that searches for evidence. In the second place, the Supreme Court wasn't even considering the question of whether the test was fair as such, but rather whether New Haven's designation of it as unfair was a violation of the rights of Ricci and his pals.
Apparently the US Supreme Court and the City of New Haven conflict with reality too then.
Not the city of New Haven. Their doing the right thing here is what landed them in front of the Supreme Court, where they lost.
Maybe they just need to be smarter.
Wait, weren't you just decrying as a strawman the idea that you presume black people are stupid without any real evidence?
Right, Ricci won his lawsuit. What did you think was going to happen?
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