The Washington Post is reporting that the SCOTUS has overturned a 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals decision that SCOTUS nominee Sonja Sotomayor had endorsed.
The high court has ruled that the city of New Haven, CT acted wrongly when they denied promotions for white fire fighters as part of an affirmative action move to ensure the promotions of minority fire fighters.
Interesting quotes from the SCOTUS and other federal appeals court judges on the 2nd Appeals Court ruling.
“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,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court. He was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Samuel Alito, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.
But the appellate judges have been criticized for producing a cursory opinion that failed to deal with “indisputably complex and far from well-settled” questions, in the words of another appeals court judge, Sotomayor mentor Jose Cabranes.
“This perfunctory disposition rests uneasily with the weighty issues presented by this appeal,” Cabranes said, in a dissent from the full 2nd Circuit’s decision not to hear the case.
Interesting that Obama specifically singled out a (so-called) justice who traffics in “cursory opinion” and “perfunctory dispositions” to serve as his first nominee to the SCOTUS.
Update: Ed Morrisseey has a good review of the ruling on Hot Air – worth reading.
Update: Laura Ingraham Tweet notes that the entire court — 9-0 — ruled against Sotomayor’s summary judgment of fire fighter’s claims. Therefore, the case isn’t just a 5-4 decision along partisan lines.
Update: Ed Morrissey has added another Hot Air post that points out the Orwellian double speak employed by the Obama administration when it suits their purpose. His post also supports the Laura Ingraham tweet from yesterday.
Not one of the judges upheld Sotomayor’s “quota-friendly” logic. Even Ginsburg could not go along with Sotomayor’s “logic.”
Morrissey also points out that the Obama Justice Dept. filed a friend of the court brief that argued against Sotomayor’s ruling in Ricci. So the same group who is now holding Sotomayor up for a seat on the SCOTUS and arguing that she is a brilliant originalist and a dutiful follower of precedent recently filed a brief against her rulling, arguing that she overreached (judicial activism) and erred badly in her understanding of the law.
