Though uncomfortably close, it was a victory for liberty. By a 5-4 margin, the U.S. Supreme Court today in Ricci v. DeStefano overturned a Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that defended a local government race-based job promotion policy. The City of New Haven, Connecticut, the High Court said, erred when it scrapped the results of a written exam designed for promoting local firefighters because the highest scorers did not include any blacks. The ruling is especially noteworthy because it rebukes Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote the circuit court decision. Whether the case will be used to bar race-based quotas in the future, however, is less certain.
