Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor helped lead an advocacy group that pushed legal theories about employment and race much like the one scotched by the Supreme Court Monday, according to documents released Wednesday as part of her confirmation process....
The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund filed several lawsuits on behalf of minority employees alleging that promotional examinations were racially biased, obtaining judgments or settlements that guaranteed their promotion, sometimes ahead of white employees with higher scores.
In one case against the New York City Police Department, “we obtained quota promotions for Latinos and African Americans to the rank of sergeant,” the group said in a May 1992 report....
Judge Sotomayor’s backers say her circuit-court vote backing New Haven was based on precedent. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund documents suggest the judge may long have held similar views. They virtually ensure that a debate over the relationship between the law and racial discrimination will be at the forefront of Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings, which start July 13....
Judge Sotomayor joined the group’s board in 1980 and at times served as its vice president and as chairman of its litigation and education committees, according to materials she filed with the Senate Judiciary Committee. She stepped down in October 1992, after President George H.W. Bush appointed her to the federal bench. It is unclear from the documents what role Judge Sotomayor played in specific cases.During her 12 years on its board of directors, the group fought to establish case law that would have allowed New Haven to throw out test results and at least one case seemed to foreshadow that specific dispute.
MORE SOTOMAYOR:
http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/2009/07/05/racial-equity-put-to-test/Racial equity put to test
Posted: 04 Jul 2009 11:04 PM PDT
Attorney Karen Torre (center) with New Haven firefighters including lead plaintiff Frank Ricci (center, right) outside federal court in New Haven Monday. (Mary Altaffer/Associated Press)
THE SUPREME Court’s opinion in Ricci v. DeStefano (“A bad test for racial equity,’’ Editorial, June 30) is commendable. The majority’s decision - “that the New Haven Civil Service Board practiced intentional discrimination in overturning a 2003 Fire Department exam’’ - was a break from the sad stranglehold identity politics enjoys in our society.
The City of New Haven bent over backward to design exams that objectively measure candidates’ abilities. It was a slap in the face and a blow to equal protection under the law, then, to deny the highest scorers positions for fear of upsetting minority applicants.
MORE SOTOMAYOR:
http://www.newsmax.com/insidecover/colin_powell_Sotomayor/2009/07/05/232055.html?s=al&promo_code=82BF-1http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/2009/07/05/sotomayor-helped-push-minority-cases/
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