Ricci: The Whole Story
Nicole Allan and Emily Bazelon saw how important the Ricci case was shaping up to be. So they decided to find out more of the backstory than the rote facts that appear in every report on the case. The results? An eye-opening piece of journalism. It’s tough to read the article and come to the conclusion that the decision to overturn the results of the test was motivated by discrimination against whites. It’s not so tough to conclude that the need to promote more black firefighters was very real and very relevant to the city’s ability to serve its community. While Allan and Bazelon don’t do much legal analysis in the piece, they deserve credit for bringing the Griggs case into the story.
i suggest if you read this article in its entirety you should also go to the newhaven20.com website where they take on what they claim to be numerous misstatements of facts and misreporting in this article. i didn’t find all that much new in this piece that hadn’t been reported before. obsidian wings (whatever one may think of this site because of recent controversy) had a terrific analysis and discussion of the case a while ago. I think its tough to read this article case and not be persuaded that the results were thrown out because they did not match the racial profile needed to reflect a numerically correct picture of the racial make up of new haven and the fire department. and i love this excerpt ” “The guys who are really inspired to get promoted would find out what was on the last exam and they would go and find the materials and they would buy them and study, but study at their own pace.”
As one Hispanic quoted anonymously by the New Haven Independent put it, the test favored “fire buffs”—guys who read fire-suppression manuals on their downtime and paid test-manual writers to come to New Haven to speak. …..” i realize this case hangs on several levels of legal analysis and there are several different outcomes or remedies the court may take. whatever it should be interesting. the most surprising thing to me though was not that the appeals court dismissed the case but they did so without comment. no mention of this is made in the article no is there any mention of judge carbranes scathing dissent and take down of the dismissal.Report