[editorial note: Steven Lindsay was in the gallery during today's Supreme Court session, and has provided APP with this report.]

This morning the Supreme Court of the United States, during its final session before the annual summer recess, released its long-awaited opinion in Ricci v. DeStefano. The case dealt with a group of New Haven firefighters seeking promotions based on test scores that were later discarded by New Haven because the “results showed the tests to be discriminatory.”

The Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling that the tests had discriminated against minorities based on their race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Supreme Court reversed that decision. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the Court’s majority in the 5-4 case, held that, “a minimal standard could cause employers to discard the results of lawful and beneficial promotional examinations even where there is little if any evidence of disparate-impact discrimination.” This “de facto quota system” would then run counter to the clear purpose of Title VII.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reading her dissent from the bench, asserted that the administration of both oral and written components yielded “significant racial disparities” among the test-takers. She also claimed that the white firefighters had “no vested right to promotion” and that the Court failed “to acknowledge the better tests used in other cities, which have yielded less racially skewed outcomes.”

It is of note that the Court refrained from deciding whether or not the disputed provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 are constitutionally permitted by the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It is also important to acknowledge that the Court’s decision in Ricci overturns the 2nd Circuit ruling of which Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor was a member of the majority.