Posted by Jim Lindgren:
Stuart Taylor on The Firefighters Case and the Nondiscrimination Principle. --
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_06_07-2009_06_13.shtml#1244520100
[1]Stuart Taylor's article on the public's opposition to racial
preferences and support for the nondiscrimination principle includes
an interesting exchange from the New Haven firefighters case:
Race: Sotomayor And Obama Versus Voters;
It's clear that Americans want racially preferential
affirmative-action programs abolished. . . .
[S]enators and others who speak out for nondiscrimination and
against racial preferences will be falsely accused of playing the
race card. The best response is to avoid inflammatory rhetoric
while stressing the nondiscrimination principle and the real-life
consequences that are at stake.
The Supreme Court, along with several successful state ballot
initiatives, has been the only restraint on proliferation of
ever-more-pervasive racial preferences.
Consequences such as those described by Karen Lee Torre, the white
firefighters' lawyer, in her December 2007 oral argument before the
Appeals Court panel.
In response to Judge Rosemary Pooler's assertion that "no one was
hurt" in the New Haven case, Torre said: "No one was hurt? For
heaven's sakes, judge, if they didn't refuse to fill the vacancies,
these men would be lieutenants and captains. How can you say they
weren't hurt? They're out $1,000 apiece [for test preparation]....
They spent three months of their lives holed up in a room, like I
was and you were when we took the bar exam."
Torre went on to emphasize why the test was a valid basis for
making promotions -- and what can happen when promotions go to
people who have not done their homework:
"These men [are not] garbage collectors. This is a command position
of a first-responder agency. The books you see piled on my desk are
fire-science books. These men face life-threatening circumstances
every time they go out.... They are tested for their knowledge of
fire, behavior, combustion principles, building collapse, truss
roofs, building construction, confined-space rescue, dirty-bomb
response, anthrax, metallurgy.... The court [should] not treat
these men in this profession as if it were unskilled labor. We
don't do this to lawyers or doctors or nurses or captains or even
real estate brokers. But somehow, they treat firefighters as if it
doesn't require any knowledge to do the job....
"Firefighters die every week in this country .... A young father
and firefighter, Eddie Ramos, died after a truss roof collapsed in
a warehouse fire because the person who commanded the scene decided
to send men into an unoccupied house... with a truss roof known to
collapse early in [a] fire because of the nature of the pins that
hold the trusses together.... And the fire chief had to go tell a
6-year-old that her father wasn't coming home."
Judge Sotomayor responded by observing that there must be "a fair
test that could be devised that measures knowledge in a more
substantive way."
Translation: New Haven needs a test that won't give such an
advantage to the firefighters who have learned the most about
fighting fires.
References
1. http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_20090606_9502.php
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