Ricci wins.

I hope this ruling is welcomed by competitive peoples of all colors and stripes...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. city of New Haven, Connecticut violated the law by throwing out a promotion exam after it yielded too many qualified white applicants and no acceptable black candidates, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a major civil rights decision.

By a 5-4 vote and splitting along conservative and liberal lines, the justices overturned a ruling for the city by a U.S. appeals court panel that included Judge Sonia Sotomayor, who is President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nominee.

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By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has ruled 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.

The ruling could alter employment practices nationwide, potentially limiting the circumstances in which employers can be held liable for decisions when there is no evidence of intentional discrimination against minorities.
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Monday's decision has its origins in New Haven's need to fill vacancies for lieutenants and captains in its fire department. It hired an outside firm to design a test, which was given to 77 candidates for lieutenant and 41 candidates for captain.

Fifty six firefighters passed the exams, including 41 whites, 22 blacks and 18 Hispanics. But of those, only 17 whites and two Hispanics could expect promotion.

The city eventually decided not to use the exam to determine promotions. It said it acted because it might have been vulnerable to claims that the exam had a "disparate impact" on minorities in violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

The white firefighters said the decision violated the same law's prohibition on intentional discrimination.

Kennedy said an employer needs a "strong basis in evidence" to believe it will be held liable in a disparate impact lawsuit. New Haven had no such evidence, he said.

The city declined to validate the test after it was given, a step that could have identified flaws or determined that there were no serious problems with it. In addition, city officials could not say what was wrong with the test, other than the racially skewed results.

ADDED:
Succinct legal analysis from George Washington University law professor Ilya Shapiro.

AND:
The political spin begins...

"The issue from the Sotomayor perspective is, does this call into question anything about her judgement? And it doesn't," said one senior White House official. "The majority made it clear they are making a new rule. No one has really questioned that she did what she was supposed to do.’’

The court overturned an earlier order that Sotomayor had endorsed as an appellate court judge, that upheld New Haven’s decision to throw out a promotion test it had given the firefighters when no African Americans and two Hispanics qualified for advancement. The 134-word order has been the flash point of much of the legal debate over Sotomayor’s nomination.