Ethics and Assessment: Ricci v. DeStefano (2009)
The Ricci v. DeStefano (2009) is a legal case touching united states labor law which was determined in the United States Supreme Court that the fire department of New Haven unlawfully discriminated against ramification of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The court’s decision was that the Fire Department had unfairly kept the plaintiffs from having job promotions based on their race. The case arose after the Fire Department in 2003 offered promotional vacancies to fire department through examinations. Those who took the lieutenant examinations where seventy-seven firefighters of the New Haven station, while forty-one firefighters took for the captain openings ("Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009)", 2018).
When results were out, the passage rate of black fighter fighters who had taken the examinations was around half of the corresponding white candidates. For the Captain section, 19 out of the 33 whites passed, out of the 8 blacks only 3 passed, and 3 of the 8 Hispanics ("Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009)", 2018). According to the “Rule of Three” of the firefighters, the top nine slots for the captain vacancies would be whites and no black person. On the lieutenant, there are 6 of the 19 blacks, 3 of the 15 Hispanics, and 29 of the 59 whites, passed the exams ("Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009)", 2018). Also, based on the city’s “Rule of Three” all of the top ten firefighters for the job were all whites and not a black person.
The fire department feared a lawsuit on racial discrimination and flouting of affirmative action, they shelved the results and agreed that no person will be promoted based on the written examinations. A lawsuit against racial discrimination was then brought against the Fire Department of New Haven by one Latino and 18 whites who felt that their test results had qualified them to be promoted(Mitchell, 2013). Frank Ricci was the white firefighter the center of the lawsuit who testified that he had put many hours into studying for the examinations. also, to overcome his dyslexia, he had paid someone to have textbooks recorded on tape for him to do well for the test. The respondent of the lawsuit was John DeStefano, the mayor of New Haven. DeStefano’s lawyers argued that it was unfair to vilify the actions of the fire department as racial discrimination because they were trying to comply with 1964 Civil Rights Act (Mitchell, 2013). The Title VII of the act espouses that practices which are discriminatory to employees are banned.
The supreme court reversed the decision of the lower second circuit courts, which is a five to four decision, arguing that the Latino and white firefighters were unfairly denied promotions based on their race. Justice Anthony Kennedy argued that compliance with the Title VII was not permissible to discard the test results (Rutherglen, 2009). The legal implication of the decision was that the Fire Department had the examination results reinstated and 14 of the firefighters were reinstated in the month of the ruling. $2 million was paid to the plaintiffs and each firefighter viable for promotion was given a service time of 3 years. $3 million was given to the plaintiff’s attorney Karen Lee Torre to cover the litigation fees (Rutherglen, 2009).
The case had given an expression of statutory interpretation based on the decision of the court. Justice Kennedy’s decision revealed that there was a constitutional lacuna in the law of the case. This is because it is unconstitutional of the legislature to have an enactment of a statute intended to give employers the ability to expressively make decisions based on race ("Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009)", 2018). However, decisions made the employers be neutrally liable for the practices on the disparate impact of the selection of employees based on race.
The decision of the court found biases as of the second circuit court in that it reversed its decision on the premise that the city had rejected results only because of having white candidates scoring high in the examination. The court determined that the fear of litigation from the minority race could not justify the unlawful practices to the detriment of those who had succeeded (Mitchell, 2013). In this case, the fear of litigation alone, could not give a justification of the employer relying on race at the expense of those who had passed for promotions by passing the examinations. This bias based on the race could not warrant the activities of the discarding the results and using such by the District Court ruling for the city, or the second court denying the plaintiffs the opportunity for rehearing.
In this case, the intent of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Title VII was to deter any discriminatory practices based on race by employers against any individual. The disparate treatment could not warrant justification of bias by any employer, based on racial aspect at the expense of any race in labor relations (Mitchell, 2013). In this case, the confirmation of bias by the lower courts was unwarranted, and could not reclaim the justification of the city in denying promotions to successful candidates for the fear of litigation by the minority. More so, with little or no evidence, disparate impact suit cannot give justification of bias of lawfully and justly acquired test results as such would be tantamount to creating a de facto quota system (Mitchell, 2013).
There are ethical implications of the case to the population is that the disparate impact aspect which can be invoked under Title VII could not apply in any case. The decision of the court changed the civil rights law landscaped. The standards which the supreme court set ensured that employers could not shelve results from examinations for promotions or hiring once they have been administered (Biddle & Biddle, 2013). This is despite the fact that the results would have a promotion or hiring process will have an inappropriately negative impact on any participating race. The most affected by these results are public employers who rely on such examinations or civil service examinations for hiring or promotions. However, the principle which was highlighted by the court is applicable to all employers and all varieties of processes which can be used to rank current or potential employees (Biddle & Biddle, 2013).
The Act had intended to give equal opportunities to all, and therefore efforts which are based on personal initiatives could not warrant a state of contradiction by the employers. In this case, the credibility of the examinations must be used as the standards for hiring and promotion of employees. However, employers can invoke the Title VII during the setting of the tests and not after they have been done affirmative action and the racial impact during the test designing. The populace can now understand that the Title VII does not only protect the minority in the society against discrimination, but also the majority in the society (Biddle & Biddle, 2013). therefore, until the 2009 judgment, employers have to now produce substantial evidence to show they would have lost the disparate impact case if it were to be launched.
The role of norms is essential in the creation of tests and in this case, a paramount consideration in the Ricci v. DeStefano case, and the test which would have been set. In the process of norming, the person should evaluate the statistical data of the sample, sample the population, determine the sampling error, evaluate the sample of the group concerns and have documentation of the process (Gasquoine, 2009). In this case, this process will give the person enough data for norming of the group concerned. In this aspect, race-norming should have been used or be used in the future for score adjustment strategy or conversion of scores within groups (Gasquoine, 2009). In this aspect, it will induce the process test scores adjustments to consider the races of the examination candidates.
However, such a race norming was outlawed by the 1991 Civil Rights Act, after its inception 1981 by the federal government. This is an aspect which was used by some states in the country for counteracting racial bias in employee applicants on the aptitude tests. In the aspect of the Ricci v. DeStefano case, the creation of lower IQ test for African Americans could not mean that all African Americans could have lower achievement abilities compared to the whites (Miao, 2010). Therefore, the supreme court ruled that the generalized creation of bias by the lower in that the examination was hard for the African Americans could not be allowed as evidence. In their ruling, they found out little evidence from the test scores which could warrant dismissal of the results for fear of disparate impact litigation.
In conclusion, the case created a precedent which would be used by employers to have standards and ranks from their employees and job applicants. Fear of litigation and losing the case cannot be used to discriminate job applicants based on race or ethnicity. Considerations should be done on both parties to ensure that justice is ensured to all participants. In this case, the New Haven fire station management and the city should not have feared litigation and the expense of lawfully successful candidates. The lower courts should have considered the role of normalization in admitting evidence tabled by the respondents.
References
Biddle, R., & Biddle, D. (2013). What Public-Sector Employers Need to Know About Promotional Practices, Procedures, and Tests in Public Safety Promotional Processes. Public Personnel Management, 42(2), 151-190. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0091026013487046
Gasquoine, P. (2009). Race-Norming of Neuropsychological Tests. Neuropsychology Review, 19(2), 250-262. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11065-009-9090-5
Miao, W. (2010). Did the Results of Promotion Exams Have a Disparate Impact on Minorities? Using Statistical Evidence in Ricci v. DeStefano. Journal of Statistics Education, 18(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10691898.2010.11889594
Mitchell, C. (2013). An Analysis of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in Ricci v. DeStefano. Public Personnel Management, 42(1), 41-54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0091026013484574
Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557 (2009). (2018). Justia Law. Retrieved 23 March 2018, from https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/557/557/
Rutherglen, G. (2009). Ricci v DeStefano: Affirmative Action and the Lessons of Adversity. The Supreme Court Review, 2009(1), 83-114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/653644
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