And Justice For All

So how would this have worked when I was in high school?

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I arrive at my desk, 30 seconds before the bell rings.

Class starts. Teacher instructs the class to clear off the desks and take out a sheet of paper and a pencil. Time for a quiz.

The quiz includes 10 short answer questions.

Time's up. Students exchange papers for grading.

Teacher enumerates the answers, instructs students to record total right answers at the top of the page and hand it back to the owner.

Each student glances at his or her score.

The teacher asks, "how many white students got at least 7 right? How many black students got at least 7 right, how many Asian students got at least seven right?"

"Wait! Wait! Wait!!!!" the teacher exclaims. "Not enough Asians passed the test. This test doesn't count. We'll take another quiz tomorrow..."

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Sounds crazy doesn't it. Luckily, by only a 5 to 4 margin, the Supreme Court today said that it was insane as well when it decided that "white" firefighters were the target of discrimination after their city disregarded test results because too few "minorities" did well on the test, a test which could have resulted in a promotion (see "Connecticut Firefighters 'Vindicated' by Supreme Court Ruling" - Fox News).

The troubling part is that four Justices dissented implying that a test is only valid if "minorities" do well.

"Lady Justice" often appears with a blindfold to symbolize the equal and unbiased distribution of fairness and equality. To reference skin color of test participants recklessly abandons any reasonable perception of fairness.

Ironically, it is in the name of fairness that such discrimination is often perpetrated. In the end, the very people for whom these decisions are intended to help are truly insulted. Today, the four dissenting Justices suggested that the "minorities" are not "good enough" to pass the test on their own, that they need a little extra help.

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As many in the press are reporting, this case is a "political football" for the most recent Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, who supported the lower court's decision to rule in favor of the city of New Haven, CT. She has a judicial history of incorporating the "two-wrongs-make-a-right" philosophy in her court decisions. Race has all too frequently been an ingredient in her rulings.

The Founding Fathers assigned the Supreme Court the responsibility of interpreting the law, especially the Constitution. They are not to make the law, not to implement policy, only to interpret the law. Sotomayor has a political chip on her shoulder. A little research reveals that the glasses through which she views the world are not color blind (see "Videos Shed New Light on Sotomayor’s Positions" - The New York Times).

What's my point? It is a plea, and that plea is this: please make informed votes. Those who make the decisions on Sotomayor are already in place (i.e., the President and the Senate). For all those "Einsteins" out there that said that the president has little effect on court decisions (i.e., Roe v Wade), please start turning off MTV for a few minutes and tune into the daily news.