The mayor’s name has leaped into living rooms across America again on a hot-button national issue. This time, he’s backing away from the spotlight.
Mayor John DeStefano spoke about his latest turn in the national spotlight for the first time in months Thursday, briefly, when asked questions as he was leaving an unrelated press conference. He hesitated to make bold statements or reflect much on the issue at hand — the way the city promotes or doesn’t promote firefighters.
“It’s just a fact of circumstance right now. That’s all it is,” he said of the way the issue has exploded.
Click on the play arrow to watch his remarks.
The last time DeStefano’s name hit the national spotlight, his reaction was different. He had just put in place a groundbreaking immigrant-friendly municipal ID program and ordered his cops not to ask people about their immigration status. DeStefano used the opportunity to make a case for welcoming and working with newcomers to American cities rather than trying to drive them away. He held press conferences. He went on national TV and conducted interviews with national print reports. He offered a passionate defense of city policy and sought to influence the national conversation on immigration. He took on the federal government for its raids on immigrants.
This time the story is racial preferences in hiring. The story centers on a closely watched Supreme Court lawsuit and an historic U.S. Supreme Court nomination process at the center of which the lawsuit has emerged.
And the suit — Ricci v. DeStefano — literally has the mayor’s name written all over it.
From newspaper articles to magazine columns to TV news and hot-talk programs, the case has had two spots at the crest of the national news cycle: First, when the Supreme Court heard it on April 22. And now when President Obama nominated to the Supreme Court the first-ever Latino judge, Sonia Sotomayor. As an appellate judge, Sotomayor ruled in favor of the city in Ricci and took heat for dismissing an appeal without addressing the case’s larger issues. Now opponents of her nomination have seized on Ricci v. DeStefano as Exhibit A to make the argument against her — with no real Exhibit B or C.
In the suit, 20 city firefighters, 19 white and one Hispanic, sued the city for throwing out the results of a promotional test for lieutenants. They said the city violated their rights by not promoting them. The city said it feared a lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if it made promotions based on the test since no African-Americans scored high enough to qualify for immediate promotions.
The named defendant in the case, Mayor DeStefano, hasn’t issued press releases or conducted national or regional interviews on the case during those two cycles, even as his name and his administration’s policies came under scrutiny by people across the country. Rather than the mayor, the city’s corporation counsel went on national TV with Lou Dobbs to make New Haven’s case.
The city’s position isn’t selling, based on the results of a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. By a whopping margin of 73 to 20 percent (with 7 percent undecided), respondents said the Supreme Court should order the city to promote the top-scoring firefighters.
Conservative media commentators and activists have used the Ricci v. DeStefano case as a symbol of what’s wrong not just with Justice Sotomayor, but with the whole notion of racial preferences in hiring and affirmative action.
As he left a press conference outside Whalley Avenue’s Top Kat Super Laundromat Thursday on the topic of traffic-calming, DeStefano was asked how it feels to have his name used as that kind of symbol.
“It doesn’t feel like anything one way or another,” he responded.
He expressed no disappointment: “It’s just a fact of circumstance right now. That’s all it is.”
He repeated the city’s original argument in the case: that it was simply following Title VII as “consistently” interpreted by the courts. Under that interpretation, the city should ignore results of a test that have no African-American qualifiers — even if the city doesn’t believe the test was racially biased. The city in fact hired nonwhite experts to help craft the test to avoid bias. But it still could have been sued under the law, and therefore had to ignore the results, the city argued.
The plaintiffs disagreed with that interpretation of the law. They also argued that ignoring the results of the test racially discriminated against them, violating their constitutional rights. They appealed to the federal courts. First a district judge, then the appeals panel including Judge Sotomayor, upheld the city’s position. The plaintiffs then appealed to the Supreme Court, where they received a noticeably more sympathetic hearing. Court-watchers expect the plaintiffs to prevail when the court rules later this month.
DeStefano acknowledged Thursday that the outlook of federal judges, including those on the Supreme Court, has been “evolving.” That could mean that the accepted interpretation of Title VII followed by his government may change.
He was asked several times what stand he takes on the law, whether he supports changing the interpretation. He replied that the city didn’t seek to “take a stand” with its actions on the test. He replied that Congress sets the law, not the city. Ultimately, after repeated questions, he responded that he does believe that Title VII “stands for something important. I realize the election of Barack Obama is a signal threshold in the history of the United States. But I also understand is not the reality” for everyone.
“The purpose of the title stands for something. I think it makes sense frankly.”
The full five-minute exchange appears in the video at the top of this story.
For a contrast, click here to watch an appearance the mayor made last year on CNN to defend his immigration policies. And click on the play arrow here to watch the passionate case he made at a press conference last month about United Illuminating’s decision to move its corporate offices out of New Haven.
Past stories on fire department promotions and the Ricci case:
• 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
Id this could only bring King Johnny down...