Supreme Court Rules in Favor of White Firefighters

Judge Sonia Sotomayor still looks headed for confirmation to the Supreme Court. But the 5-to-4 Supreme Court decision in a controversial reverse discrimination case could make the last few steps up to the nation's highest court just a little bit more slippery for the nominee.

The case of Ricci v. DeStefano pitted a group of firefighters from Connecticut against the city of New Haven. The firefighters, most of whom are white, argued that they had been discriminated against because of their race when the city threw out the results of a promotion exam. The city argued that its promotion process was aimed at avoiding litigation from minority candidates. Had the test results been accepted, 13 of the 15 promotions would have gone to whites and two to Hispanics. None of the black candidates would have been promoted, leading the city to scrap the test entirely.

Along ideological lines, the court ruled 5 to 4 in favor of the city, with frequent swing vote Anthony Kennedy siding with the court's conservative block. Retiring Justice David Souter, whom Sotomayor is nominated to replace, sided with the minority.

It was one of the most contentious and closely watched cases before the court this year. And it's likely to continue reverberating as Sotomayor and her senatorial inquisitors prepare for her confirmation hearings.

The ruling in the Ricci case reverses an earlier unsigned opinion on the case, with which Sotomayor concurred when she sat on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. Of course, reversals from the Supreme Court are not unusual: About 60 percent of circuit court decisions have been reversed by the high court in the past five years. Moreover, the closeness of the decision also seems to undercut central conservative criticisms (and potential lines of attack during her hearings) that she is far outside of the mainstream of American legal thought.

Nor is a high-profile disagreement unprecedented. Justice Samuel Alito was reversed four times in abortion cases alone when he was a circuit court judge. Alito was confirmed by the Senate despite pointed questioning. That will very likely be the script for the Sotomayor hearings scheduled to begin in mid-July.