[Marxism] Conservative Justice and the Ricci Firefighterâs Case

[milongonsinga <milongonsinga@xxxxxxxxx>]

Conservative Justice and the Ricci Firefighterâs Case
African American Leadership
By Dr. Ron Walters, PhD
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board 
  
 
In the developing fight over the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, some 
conservative Republicans such as Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Tom Delay are 
raising the charge that she is âracistâ and would be an âactivistâ 
judge because of her ruling in the Ricci v. DeStephano case.   Better known as 
the New Haven Firefightersâ case, its opponents apparently believe that 
activism only applies to Democrats or liberal judges.  Moreover, the recent 
preliminary arguments before the Supreme Court suggest that the Conservatives 
on the court are poised to attack Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which 
protects those excluded by testing devices.   This has been settled law for 
over 35 years.
The role of political Conservatives in the modern era, as it has been 
historically, is to protect white interests, not to ensure that the law is fair 
to all groups in society.  In fact, some whites of this persuasion appear to 
live in a bubble of majority power, where the legitimate interests of other 
groups are perceived as a threat and where decisions defending their narrow 
group self interests are perceived to be objective.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act (Title VII, section 7h) prohibited the use of tests 
that would be used intentionally to discriminate, or tests that would be used 
without the intention to discriminate but would nevertheless, have an 
exclusionary (disparate) impact.  The continuing importance of this is that the 
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has found that in 2007 
discrimination charges involving test screening of job applicants have 
significantly increased due in part to security concerns raised by 9/11 and the 
economy.
Now all of the protected groups under Title VII, such as the Age Discrimination 
Act and Americans with Disabilities Act, are protected from biased testing in 
addition to African Americans.  So, any change in the law that seeks to 
invalidate Title VII for blacks would also affect others in these categories.  
Yet, activist conservatives on the Court seem poised to do so.
My suspicion however, is that the Supreme Court conservatives see red meat in 
the charge that white firefighter Ricci makes â that the City of New 
Havenâs attempt to comply with Title VII is, in itself, race discrimination 
against whites who are protected by the principle of âequal protection of the 
lawsâ under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.   This charge has been 
the great battle ground over Affirmative Action that has had the Conservative 
movement proposing the ridiculous concept of  âreverse racism.â   Since 
when has limitations on the powerful from exercise of absolute power over 
employment, seats in college, contracts and etc, actually proven to be racist 
against whites?  The original aim of the law was to attempt to strike a balance 
by opening the doors of inclusion of blacks who had been excluded from such 
institutions and practices of American society, but Conservatives believe that 
any impingement on the power of the
 majority in an attempt to create an equalitarian and democratic society is 
oppressive to whites.
You would think that the attempt to change settled law in the â64 Act would 
get a push-back from other whites to believe in social justice.  But the media 
has all but created a platform where Right wing opinion is promoted.  In doing 
so, they are protecting their fallacious and undemocratic position.  In one of 
my most recent books, White Nationalism, Black Interests, I have written that 
the reinterpretation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, as Ricci and 
his colleagues are attempting to do, amounts to the reconfirmation of âwhite 
rights.â  Powerful conservative politicians and judges began this project 
with the case, Shaw v. Reno which narrowed the basis for the inclusion of 
African Americans in college enrollment to the point that we now have an 
ill-defined standard of something called âdiversity.â  This move against 
employment in an atmosphere of economic decline and rampant black unemployment 
could not come at a worse time.  Blacks
 should not have to confront biased testing if they are to get back to work and 
to be promoted after this Depression is over. 
But, we will eventually need two Sonia Sotomayors to have a Court that 
represents the interests of all the Americans.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member Dr. Ron Walters is the 
Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership 
Center and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland 
College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (The 
Politics of Race and Ethnicity)  (Rowman and Littlefield). Click here to 
contact Dr. Walters. 
  
 
"When words cannot be better than silence, it's better to shut up." Eduardo 
Galeano

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu