Sotomayor Nomination Puts Spotlight on Fire Test Case

SONIA SOTOMAYOR: Come a long way from Bronx.

When President Obama nominated Federal Appeals Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court last week, it promised to restart a debate about race-based promotions in public employment.

As a U.S. Court of Appeals Judge, Ms. Sotomayor voted to uphold a lower court ruling in favor of the City of New Haven's decision to throw out the results of a Fire Department promotion exam for Lieutenants because none of the African-Americans who sat for the test scored well enough for promotion. A group of white firefighters and one Latino sued the city. The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in April, and is expected to rule on it this summer.

Found No Disparate Impact

U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton had ruled that the city's scrapping of the test results affected all applicants equally and that dis- carding the results did not constitute an illegal denial of a job. The appeals court said it found no violation of the Civil Rights Act.

John Coombs, president of the Vulcan Society of black firefighters, has argued that the Civil Rights Act was meant to correct issues of racial disparity and that the City of New Haven's decision to apply affirmative action standards for under represented minorities within its Fire Department's promotion system did not violate the law.

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The Vulcan Society is an intervening plaintiff in the U.S. Justice Department's lawsuit against the city, alleging that the 1999 and 2002 exams for Firefighter had a disparate impact on African-Americans and Latinos.

Some groups have blasted Ms. Sotomayor's nomination, pointing to the judge's New Haven decision. Since the Democrats have control of the U.S. Senate, it will be difficult for Republicans to block her confirmation.

The Right Denounces, DA Defends

"It is troubling that Obama, who won the highest elected office in the world without racial preferences, would nominate someone who openly admits the government should racially discriminate against its own citizens to serve the needs of political correctness," Libertarian National Committee Chairman William Redpath said in a statement.

Conservative commentators have accused Ms. Sotomayor of being a "judicial activist," but Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, who employed Ms. Sotomayor three decades ago when she was a young prosecutor, defended her record and lauded her character.

'Strong Champion of the Law'

"Assistant District Attorney Sotomayor was no 'liberal,''' he wrote in an op-ed in the Daily News. "The judge's work since she left this office confirms that she is a strong champion of the law...To be sure, she is in favor of civil rights, in the sense that she believes there should be fair treatment for all. But that is, of course, the law."

The International Association of Fire Firefighters declined comment about Ms. Sotomayor's appointment.

Rose From Public Housing

Ms. Sotomayor is a Bronx native of Puerto Rican parents, and was raised by her single mother in public housing after her father died when she was nine. She is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School and was first appointed to the Federal judiciary by President George H.W. Bush.

"She has been an incredibly good Federal Judge, and having risen from humble beginnings in The Bronx, she brings a perspective that will serve the Court—and our nation—very well," Mayor Bloomberg said in a statement. "Judge Sotomayor was first recommended to the Federal bench by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan—and of all his great legacies, she may prove to be one of the most important."