(Updated Tuesday 5:02 p.m.) The Supreme Court dealt them a blow, but they vow to fight on.
That’s the message from New Haven’s black firefighters and the NAACP.
They delivered that message in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling Monday in Ricci v. DeStefano, thet New Haven can’t ignore the results of a fire department promotional exam just because no African-Americans scored high enough. (Read about that here.)
The message was delivered late Monday afternoon, then again Tuesday afternoon, at press conferences at local NAACP headquarters on Whalley Avenue. The message was nuanced, and determined.
“It’s going to set us back 45 years in” encouraging fire departments to hire more blacks, Hispanics and women, Lt. Gary Tinney, president of the New Haven Firebirds, a fraternal group for black firefighters said of the court ruling. (He’s pictured at the front of the photo at the top of the story. Behind him is 11-year veteran firefighter James Watkins, who passed the promotional exam but didn’t score high enough to make the first round of promotions. He said he turned down an offer to join the “New Haven 20” Ricci lawsuit.)
He accused the Supreme Court of “changing the rules in the middle of the game” by coming up with new criteria for how cities should apply Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And he said he expects a backlash from victorious white colleagues and firefighter unions. (Click on the play arrow to watch those comments.)
On the other hand, he and NAACP President James Rawlings repeatedly said they saw silver linings in Monday’s ruling that will enable them to continue filing lawsuits and taking other actions in the name of advancing diversity. Which they plan to do.
“It doesn’t end here,” Tinney said.
“Folks can pop champagne bottles,” firefighter Douglas Wardlaw (pictured) said Tuesday, referring to the victorious plaintiffs in the case. “They can smoke cigars all they want. But it’s not over. We’re still saving fighting the fight. We’re still saving lives. We’re still producing African-American, Latino and female heroes to look up to.”
Whither Title VII?
Though a “disappointment to civil rights,” the 5 – 4 majority opinion leaves open the door for people to file lawsuits challenging employers with discriminating under Title VII, Rawlings said.
He and Tinney said they feared that the conservative-leaning court would strike down the entire act. Instead, it ruled that New Haven’s specific actions in ignoring the results of this test were invalid, they said.
Tinney added that the ruling doesn’t even necessarily order the city to certify the results of the test in question, a 2003 exam in which no African-Americans scored high enough to qualify for immediate promotions to lieutenant or captain.
Three black candidates passed the captain’s exam, none qualifying to be eligible for promotion to seven vacancies. A total of 19 black firefighters passed the lieutenants’ exam. None qualified to fill an initial eight vacancies, but at least three would have been eligible for subsequent promotions, according to court records.
“We believe this decision reinforces the ability of minorities to challenge questionable and discriminatory promotional examinations,” said Tinney. “It only affects the city of New Haven by defining and heightening the standard by which a city must adhere in order to voluntarily comply with Title VII in the face of exams that appear to have a discriminatory impact.”
The majority opinion, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, did resist an apparent effort by Justice Atonin Scalia to go further and rule unconstitutional the ignoring of test results based on their having a “disparate impact.”
But the decision didn’t just kick the case back to the lower court. It reversed a lower-court ruling that had been in favor of the city. It gave the plaintiffs the summary judgment ruling they were looking for from the beginning. It ruled against the city specifically on the question of whether “disparate impact” — i.e. results that leave out minorities, as opposed to proof that a test was flawed — is enough of a criterion to toss an exam.
Furthermore, it decreed a new standard for interpreting Title VII. Kennedy’s opinion overturned decades of bipartisan precedent by decreeing that no longer can a city be liable for ignoring test results simply on the basis it expects to be sued — which is what New Haven did here.
Even Mayor John DeStefano — who disagreed with the decision and was the target of the ruling — said Monday that he believes the decision will in fact lead the lower court to certify the results of the 2003 exam.
And he and Pulitzer Prize-winning Supreme Court-watcher Linda Greenhouse said Monday that, by their reading of the various opinions issued, this decision could well presage a further eroding of civil-rights law.
National Picture
Gary Tinney and James Rawlings insisted that the Firebirds and NAACP won’t give up. They will file suit to challenge the test results if indeed the lower court ends up certifying the 2003 promotional exams, Tinney said.
Reverse-discrimination suits like Ricci are spreading across the country, Tinney said. One such suit is taking place in Bridgeport; Bridgeport Firebirds President Shane Porter accompanied Tinney at Monday’s press conference.
Tinney repeatedly emphasized the low numbers of not just black and Hispanics, but women, too, in fire department ranks, especially in leadership roles. Only 13 of the New Haven department’s 89 leadership positions are filled by blacks or Latinos, he said; the department’s 411 firefighters include only 11 women. In Hamden, he said, a city that’s 33 percent black, just nine of 115 firefighters are black. Just 3 percent of New York City’s 11,000 firefighters are black, he said.
Reversing numbers like these requires a lengthy battle, and strong civil rights laws, he said.
NAACP’s Rawlings (pictured) characterized the Ricci decision as part of a broader effort by the Supreme Court’s Republican-appointed 5 – 4 majority.
“They thought they could start to chip away at affirmative action. That’s what this is all about,” Rawlings said at Tuesday’s event. “This is a movement of the right to erode affirmative action in America.”
At Monday’s press conference, Tinney and Porter wore organizational T‑shirts promoting diversity in the ranks. They didn’t wear their “Class A“s, their fire uniforms; Tinney said that would be “inappropriate” and would probably lead him to be suspended. He noted that the New Haven 20 wore their uniforms to their victory press conference. (Fire Chief Michael Grant could not be reached for comment on the rules for wearing uniforms.)
Past stories on fire department promotions and the Ricci case:
• “If You Work Hard You Can Succeed In America”
• Was He The Culprit?
• Supreme Court Overturns City On Ricci
• On Page 25, A Hint
• Minority Firefighters Vow Post-Ricci Unity
• Ricci Ruling Won’t End Quest
• Ricci, Sotomayor Brand DeStefano
• Firefighter Case Reveals Surprise Obama Stand
• Justices Zero In On Race-Based Distinctions
• Rights Groups Back Black Firefighters
• The Supreme Stakes: Title VII’s Future
• Dobbs v. Bolden
• Latino Group Backs White Firefighters
• Black Firefighters: Ricci Case Poses Grave Threat
• NAACP Backs City In Firefighter Case
• Paging Justice Kennedy
• Fire Inspectors Promoted
• Fire Inspector List Approved
• U.S. Supreme Court To Hear Firefighters’ Case
• Fire Promotions Examined in Supreme Court
So much for that unity rally!