How did the justices rule in regards to the white fireman case?
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that 20 white New Haven firefighters who were denied promotion were victims of illegal racial discrimination. But while critical of New Haven for using “raw, racial statistics” to invalidate a promotional examination, the court stopped short of ordering broad changes to race-and-hiring law sought by the firefighters and their supporters. The 5-4 decision, which Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, leaves intact the portion of the law that New Haven used to invalidate the examination after no black applicants scored high enough to qualify for promotion. But analysts said the decision could raise the standard that employers must meet in the future to reject test results in similar circumstances. Employment experts said the high court’s decision in Ricci v DeStefano likely would cause public and private employers to more carefully search for bias free means of measuring suitability for promotion. They said it is unlikely that the decision
