The Supreme Court Recgonizes Discrimination Happens...

to white people, too.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., were unfairly denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision that high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor endorsed as an appeals court judge.

New Haven was wrong to scrap a promotion exam because no African-Americans and only two Hispanic firefighters were likely to be made lieutenants or captains based on the results, the court said Monday in a 5-4 decision. The city said that it had acted to avoid a lawsuit from minorities...

"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.

Using her typical lack of logic and, dare I say, compassion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in her dissent,

the white firefighters "understandably attract this court's sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion. Nor have other persons received promotions in preference to them."

No vested right in a promotion? Unlike, I suppose, the black and Hispanic firefighters who didn't pass the test? The idea that one is denied a promotion for which one is qualified simply because enough jelly beans of the right color didn't pass should shock the conscience of the court. It certainly goes against the rules of fair play that we are told we're supposed to follow.

Ed Morrissey of Hot Air has analysis here.

Don Surber says it bluntly: Sotomayor was wrong.

People for the American Way complains that Sotomayor had no choice but to make a lousy ruling. Tell that to Justice Ginsburg.

Liberal pouting here, and here. Liberal excuse making for Sotomayor here

Imagine That!

Number of black voters who view society fair and decent nearly doubles after election.

I wonder if they asked women if they felt the same.

Are Hillbillies a Protected Class?

As a bona fide coal miner's daughter (yes, my dad mined coal as a young man in his native West Virginia), I can't decide whether to laugh or be insulted at the casting call for a new movie depicting the Mountaineer State's "holler" people, also known as hillbillies:

A movie about to be filmed in Pittsburgh is casting Gothic characters -- including an albino-like girl and deformed people -- to depict West Virginia mountain people.
"'Regular-looking" children need not apply.

That's the gist of an open casting call for paid extras for "Shelter," a horror film starring Julianne Moore that will begin shooting in Pittsburgh in March.

The casting call scheduled for Sunday invites "men and women of all races, 18 or older," to try out as extras, according to the announcement from Downtown-based Donna Belajac Casting. But the extras wanted for the West Virginia scenes evoke images of Deliverance and The Hills Have Eyes.

"It's the way it was described in the script," Belajac said Monday. "Some of these 'holler' people -- because they are insular and clannish, and they don't leave their area -- there is literally inbreeding, and the people there often have a different kind of look. That's what we're trying to get."
Belajac said the announcement was not meant to stereotype people from West Virginia. But state officials and a history professor called it "unfortunate" that such unfair views of people are being repeated.

"They clearly are not trying to create the image of a quaint, homespun mountain family," said Kevin Barksdale, assistant history professor at Marshall University in Huntington, W.Va. "Clearly, what they're trying to establish is this notion of the hillbilly monster."

Maybe these two guys should apply.

It's hard for me to see why West Virginians can be insulted by this portrayal of them. Every roadside stand along Highway 119 from Charleston to Madison had some buck-toothed, big-eared, domed-forehead bearing hillbilly paraphernalia. Some were statues made of coal. Others were bumper stickers, posters, joke books, and more. True, it's not a flattering portrayal any more than all those redneck cowpoke portrayals of Texans are flattering. But if it weren't for stereotypes, where would Hollywood be?

Does Affirmative Action Hurt Minorities in Professions?

I was listening to Michael Medved's show yesterday while I was out running errands. The hour was devoted to a study which showed that affirmative action in law school admissions actually hurts minorities.

The study was done by Richard H. Sander, a tenured law professor at UCLA and lifelong supporter of racial preferences.

Sander's study shows that racial preferences in law school admissions result in a counterproductive mismatch between the academic abilities of black beneficiaries of racial preferences and the law schools to which these students are admitted under "affirmative action". According to Sander's research, this mismatch demonstrably results in a much higher failure rate than would otherwise be the case if the black students were admitted to law schools which more closely matched the their academic preparation and abilities.

In other words, black law school students are actually hurt by affirmative action (racial preference) policies. According to Sander, black law school students would do much better academically and professionally if racial preferences either did not play a role in their admission to law schools, or played a significantly reduced role.

The results don't particularly surprise me. Top tier schools are the most demanding academically. It's far more competitive and more difficult to succeed. Sure, the rewards from graduating from such schools are greater, but, simply put, not everyone has what it takes to graduate from these schools. I know I certainly couldn't have, and I don't think I'm a slouch.

The issue is sensitive for a number of reasons both of historical discrimination and current day competitiveness. In a misguided attempt to compensate for past discrimination, top tier schools are admitting minority candidates who aren't up to the rigors of their programs. These same candidates would most likely succeed at second tier schools, graduating and, most importantly, passing the bar.

Regardless of which law school one attends, all potential attorneys must pass the state bar to become licensed practitioners. Whether you go to Harvard or South Texas, you have to pass the same Texas State Bar Exam to practice law in Texas. This was a key argument I didn't hear made in all the argumentation about the study. It doesn't really do any good to send underqualified students to top tier schools if they can't get the education they need to perform on the only test that really matters: the bar exam. Without the bar card, it doesn't matter which school gave you that doctorate of jurisprudence.

I think it is safe to say that if minority students received better educations in public school, they would perform better by the time they were choosing law schools. For those favoring affirmative action and other remedies for discrimination, I think that is the place to focus. Whether the answer to that problem is more money (I don't think so) or more testing (many others don't think so) or something else, pushing unqualified students into schools which ill-suit their abilities isn't the answer. Creating situations in which more minorities students succeed is.