"Affirmative Action; Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right"

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide and make it harder to prove discrimination when there is no evidence it was intentional.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities.

In Monday's ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy said, "Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer's reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions." He was joined in the majority by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

Justices Souter, Stephen Breyer and John Paul Stevens signed onto Ginsburg's dissent, which she read aloud in court Monday. Speaking dismissively of the majority opinion, she predicted the court's ruling "will not have staying power."

The ruling is "a sign that individual achievement should not take a back seat to race or ethnicity," said Karen Torre, the firefighters' attorney. "I think the import of the decision is that cities cannot bow to politics and pressure and lobbying by special interest groups or act to achieve racial quotas."

At a press conference on the steps of city hall in New Haven, firefighter Frank Ricci said the ruling showed that "if you work hard, you can succeed in America." (Read Full Article)

Affirmative action in the United States refers to policies that take gender, race, or ethnicity into account in an attempt to promote equal opportunity within the United States. The focus of such policies ranges from employment and public contracting goals to educational outreach and health programs. The impetus towards affirmative action is twofold: to maximize diversity, and its presumed benefits, in all levels of society, and to redress perceived disadvantages due to overt, institutional, or involuntary discrimination.

In many cases, affirmative action in the United States is meant to encourage public institutions, such as universities, hospitals, and police forces, to be more representative of the populations they serve.

Affirmative action in the US began as a tool to address the persisting inequalities for African Americans in the 1960s. This specific term was first used to describe US government policy in 1961. Directed to all government contracting agencies, President Kennedy's Executive Order 10925 mandated "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin."

After describing the specific historical context of American affirmative action, President Johnson outlined the basic social science view that supports such policies:

“

Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the neighborhood you live in--by the school you go to and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally the man.

”

As the social science explaining impact of such 'unseen forces' has developed, affirmative action has widened in scope. In 1967, President Johnson amended a previous executive order on equal employment opportunity to expressly mention "discrimination on account of sex" as well.

Affirmative action has been the subject of numerous court cases, where it is often contested on constitutional grounds. Some individual American states also have orders that prohibit discrimination and outline affirmative action requirements with regard to race, creed, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, gender, age, and disability status. Some other states specifically prohibit affirmative action, with laws intended to decrease discrimination, such as California (Proposition 209), Washington (Initiative 200), Michigan (Michigan Civil Rights Initiative), and Nebraska (Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative (2008)).

Some opponents of affirmative action contend that affirmative action programs are discriminatory and that they, in many cases, result in the promotion of under-qualified individuals over higher qualified individuals on the basis of race, ethnicity, or gender. They also argue that preferential treatment should be based upon current social and economical standing, not that of one's ancestors. Some opponents say affirmative action devalues the accomplishments of people who are chosen because of the social group to which they belong rather than their qualifications. (Read Full Article)

    Many times what ostensibly rights a wrong becomes a wrong itself and something initially incorrect can be over corrected. Well intentioned aid can in time become a crippling crutch and "two wrongs never make a right". Diversity should never come about through discrimination. I agree with the Supreme Court ruling on the New Haven, Conn. white firefighters being the victims of "reverse discrimination". The most qualified for the job, school or promotion that doesn't get that job, school or promotion has been discriminated against, whether black, white, male or female. Affirmative action is reverse discrimination, as I now see it.

tags: affirmative action  supreme court  reverse discrimination  politics  takebackamerica