Category Archives: Individual Rights

'Wise Latina' Loses

Affirmative Action, Constitution, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Race, Racism, The Courts

Sonia Sotomayor’s Latina wisdom has come back to hurt and haunt her in the case of the New Haven Honkies, whose discrimination case she dismissed. So too is the Supreme Court’s blah blah Bader Ginsburg’s dissent noteworthy for its unwise quality. At least neither one of these Delphic ditzes carried the day. Reports the Christian Science Monitor:

“The US Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 on Monday that the Connecticut city violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by using race as the key criterion in refusing to certify a group of white and Hispanic firefighters for promotion.

City officials said they were afraid that if they promoted the white and Hispanic firefighters but no African-American firefighters, the city would be subject to a lawsuit by black firefighters. The high court disagreed.

“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 wrote in the majority opinion.

The high court’s action overturns the 2008 decision of a three-judge appeals-court panel that included Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama’s nominee to replace retiring Justice David Souter.

The New Haven firefighters case – and the Supreme Court’s view of it – are expected to play an important role in Judge Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation hearings next month.

The judge is believed to be a strong supporter of New Haven’s legal position in the case. In addition, it is unclear why her three-judge panel initially handed down a brief, unpublished, unsigned summary order disposing of the case without offering even cursory legal analysis.

Beyond the Sotomayor nomination, the decision is important because it provides guidance to employers that they may continue to rely on objective, work-related exams without facing a discrimination lawsuit from those who do not pass the test.

At the heart of the case were two competing provisions of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. One section bars discriminatory treatment based on race or ethnicity. A different section urges employers to avoid making job-related decisions that create a disparate impact on minority workers.

If, for example, a city conducts an exam to determine which workers will be promoted and then no African-Americans are identified for promotion – that disparate impact on black workers is presumed to be illegal. The city is expected to correct the situation.

But the law also forbids employers from using race as the sole or primary criterion for hiring or promotions – including decisions that disfavor white employees because of their race.

In this way, New Haven found itself in a Catch-22.

Justice Kennedy and the other majority justices resolved this dilemma by ruling that New Haven needed a “strong basis in evidence” to justify its discrimination against white and Hispanic firefighters. He said a mere statistical disparity alone could not amount to the strong evidence necessary.

Kennedy added that once a fair test procedure is set, employers may not invalidate the results based on race or ethnicity. “Doing so … is antithetical to the notion of a workplace where individuals are guaranteed equal opportunity regardless of race,” he wrote.

In a dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said New Haven had not engaged in illegal discrimination against the white firefighters because they had no vested right to a promotion.

She wrote that the majority justices ignored “substantial evidence of multiple flaws in the tests New Haven used.” She added that the court failed to acknowledge better tests used in other cities.

“The court’s order and opinion, I anticipate, will not have staying power,” she said.

[SNIP]

From “Beware of ‘Absolut’ Libertarian Lunacy”: “By petitioning the courts, when they should go gentle into that good night, white men like Ricci are seeking equality of results much as blacks do through coercive civil rights laws. … Ricci was wronged for excelling. He is not petitioning for special favors; he’s petitioning against them. If anything, Ricci is asking only that the city accept inequality of outcomes; accept that not all are created equal—and that he, more so than his less-qualified colleagues, is most suited to fighting fires and dousing departmental flames.”

Updated: ‘He One Holy Roller’

Constitution, Democrats, Ethics, Federalism, Individual Rights, Iraq, Law, Morality, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Republicans

Another of my archaic titles (it hails from the Beatles’ “Come Together“).

Speaking at Notre Dame, “America’s leading Roman Catholic university,” President Obama called on the factions warring over abortion to come together and find common grounds.

“So let’s work together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term.”

I agree. In their lyrics, the Beatles exhorted, “Come Together Right Now Over Me.” Make it, “Come Together Right Now Over the Constitution.”

There is no warrant in the constitution for or against abortion, adultery, homo-or hetero marriage, etc.

Quaint, I know, but to the federal government were delegated only limited and enumerated powers (Article I, Section 8):

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Yet pro-life advocates want to force their way on the rest through a constitutional amendment. And pro-choice agitators wish to compel the country—and their countrymen who oppose the procedure—to pay for abortions.

Obama is no constitutional scholar although he is touted as one. But he should know that the Constitution proscribes his meddling and prescribes, via the brilliant Tenth Amendment, a perfectly good solution: Leave it to the states and the individuals concerned (and let them pay out-of pocket).

Would that pro-life types fussed as much over fully formed, innocent human beings (such as those who’ve perished in Iraq) as they do over fetuses. Republicans sure showed their contempt for life in their enthusiasim for the carnage visited on Iraqis.

Come to think of it, the culture of life never seems to extend beyond a claim of dominion over another human being’s body.

Update (May 19): I’ve posted this Iraq notice before, but judging from the letters received, retention is non-existent. So here goes again:

A note to the neoconservatives who frequent this site, and post their ill-formulated fulminations vis-a-vis the war on Iraq: That war is not going to be adjudicated again here, not ever. I chronicled the invasion of Iraq at great length, applying fact and every ounce of reason in my possession to repudiate and denounce that war crime. The case is closed! Neoconservative ideologues stand in the dock for aiding and abetting a war crime. The lazy neoconservative can read my archive on the topic. While I can imagine these ideologues urgently need to make peace with their maker, or consciences, for their role in a crime of such moral and material magnitude, they will not do so on my private property!

Updated: Life, Liberty, And PROPERTY (‘Own It’)

Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Liberty, Political Philosophy, Private Property

“I like Fox-News broadcaster Glenn Beck. The man exudes goodness and has a visceral feel for freedom.

From this scrupulous soul I’d like to hear less about ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ and more of the original Lockean phrase, from which Thomas Jefferson drew when writing the Declaration of Independence.

‘No one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions,’ wrote the British philosopher John Locke, in the Second Treatise on Civil Government.

By ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ Jefferson meant property plus; the right to take action to acquire what is required to sustain and satisfy life. Instead, the founder bequeathed us a vagueness that has helped undermine the foundation of civilization: private property.

By and large, modern-day Americans have twisted the famous phrase, and have turned into looters who pursue happiness at the expense of the producers.

Elsewhere, Jefferson affirmed the natural right of ‘all men’ to be secure in their enjoyment of their ‘life, liberty and possessions.’ But in the Declaration, somehow, he opted for the inclusiveness of ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ rather than cleave to the precision of ‘property.'” …

More about why you should “shout ‘life, liberty, and property’ from the proverbial rooftops,” in my new WND.com column, now on Taki’s Magazine, titled aptly, “Own It.” Remember: If you miss the column on WND, you can catch it Saturdays on Taki’s Magazine.

Updated: Life, Liberty, And PROPERTY ('Own It')

Founding Fathers, Individual Rights, Liberty, Political Philosophy, Private Property

“I like Fox-News broadcaster Glenn Beck. The man exudes goodness and has a visceral feel for freedom.

From this scrupulous soul I’d like to hear less about ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,’ and more of the original Lockean phrase, from which Thomas Jefferson drew when writing the Declaration of Independence.

‘No one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions,’ wrote the British philosopher John Locke, in the Second Treatise on Civil Government.

By ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ Jefferson meant property plus; the right to take action to acquire what is required to sustain and satisfy life. Instead, the founder bequeathed us a vagueness that has helped undermine the foundation of civilization: private property.

By and large, modern-day Americans have twisted the famous phrase, and have turned into looters who pursue happiness at the expense of the producers.

Elsewhere, Jefferson affirmed the natural right of ‘all men’ to be secure in their enjoyment of their ‘life, liberty and possessions.’ But in the Declaration, somehow, he opted for the inclusiveness of ‘the pursuit of happiness,’ rather than cleave to the precision of ‘property.'” …

More about why you should “shout ‘life, liberty, and property’ from the proverbial rooftops,” in my new WND.com column, now on Taki’s Magazine, titled aptly, “Own It.” Remember: If you miss the column on WND, you can catch it Saturdays on Taki’s Magazine.