(bbergA divided U.S. Supreme Court, reversing a decision by Sonia Sotomayor and two other judges, said a Connecticut city violated white firefighters’ rights by canceling planned promotions because no blacks qualified. The justices, voting 5-4, said New Haven improperly used race as a basis for throwing out the results of a pair of tests administered to candidates for lieutenant and captain positions. The reverse-discrimination case has become a focal point in the debate over Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama. An appeals court panel that included Sotomayor rejected the white firefighters’ lawsuit, saying the city acted legitimately to avoid discrimination against blacks. “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 for the majority. The justices divided along ideological lines. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined Kennedy’s opinion. Trade groups representing employers and human resource managers urged the court to uphold the Sotomayor decision. They said employers should have flexibility when they discover that an employment practice is having a disproportionate impact on particular racial groups. In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said the ruling means that New Haven, which is almost 60 percent black and Hispanic, will be served by a fire department “in which members of racial and ethnic minorities are rarely seen in command positions.” She added: “The white firefighters who scored high on New Haven’s promotion exams understandably attract this court’s sympathy. But they had no vested right to promotion.” Still, Ginsburg’s reasoning differed from that of Sotomayor and the appeals court panel. Ginsburg said the lower courts should have asked whether New Haven had an objective basis for fearing it would be successfully sued by minority firefighters under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The trial and appellate courts focused on the city’s “intent,” rather than the underlying evidence, she said. New Haven argued that it had a “good faith” belief that cancellation was necessary to avoid liability under Title VII.

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