In today's Washington Post, George Will addresses the Ricci v DeStefano case that was just heard by the Supreme Court this week. The fire department of New Haven, Connecticut gave a test for promotion to its firefighters. The test was written to specifically account for concerns regarding the 1964 Civil Rights Act. When no African-Americans passed the exams with high enough scores to warrant promotion, eighteen firefighters (17 white and 1 hispanic) who did score high enough were passed over for promotion when the test reults were thrown out.
Here's Will's best line:
Is this the end of racial quotas in America...we shall have to wait for the justices' decision.So, to avoid defending the defensible in court, it did the indefensible. It used anxiety about a potential challenge under a statute to justify its violation of the Constitution. And it got sued.
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