Update: Ruling 9-0 in effect?..Poll 2/3 Americans agree white firefighters were discriminated against… SCOTUS rules against New Haven, reverses Sotomayor!!!!SCOTUS watch: Ricci firefighter decision expected shortly…

Another update, from Ace:

Ed Whelan at Bench Memos argues the decision is actually 9-zip against Sotomayor — because even Justice Ginsburg says (though only in a footnote) that the appellate court should have remanded the case back to the district court, not summarily affirmed the lower decision.

Another update, go read Gabriel Malor at Ace HQ for the legal reading of the ruling

Heh. Even CNN’s poll shows Americans know discrimination when they see it, they were shocked, SHOCKED to see Dems agree it is discrimination, period.:

A new national poll suggests that nearly two-thirds of Americans think white firefighters in New Haven, Connecticut where discriminated against when the city tossed out the results of a promotion exam after too few minorities scored high enough on the test.Monday the Supreme Court, in a five to four vote, ruled in favor of the white firefighters.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national survey released Monday morning, as the Supreme Court handed down it’s ruling, indicates that 65 percent of those questioned say the firefighters were victims of discrimination and should get promotions based on the test results, with 31 percent feeling that the city should a new test to make sure minority firefighters were not victims of discrimination.

“Not surprisingly, most Republicans think that the firefighters were victims of discrimination, but a majority of Democrats join in that view,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Fifty-seven percent of Democrats say the white firefighters were discriminated against. Two-thirds of Independents and three-quarters of Republicans agree.”

Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama’s nominee to replace retiring Supreme Court justice David Souter, was one of three appeals court judges who ruled that New Haven officials acted properly.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll was conducted Friday through Sunday, with 1,026 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.

Created by laniereloo

Update 2: WaPo the key line of the ruling:

“Fear of litigation alone cannot justify an employer’s reliance on race to the detriment of individuals who passed the examinations and qualified for promotions,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said in his opinion for the court.

A blow to ACORN extortionate tactics nationwide yep.

Update PDF of the ruling available via SCOTUS here, Kennedy wrote the opinion, here is key to the ruling:

…The Court’s analysis begins with the premise that the City’s actions would violate Title VII’s disparate-treatment prohibition absent somevalid defense. All the evidence demonstrates that the City rejectedthe test results because the higher scoring candidates were white.Without some other justification, this express, race-based decision-making is prohibited. The question, therefore, is whether the pur-pose to avoid disparate-impact liability excuses what otherwise would be prohibited disparate-treatment discrimination. The Court has considered cases similar to the present litigation, but in the contextof the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Such cases can provide helpful guidance in this statutory context….

WE WON WE WON WE WON WE WON WE WON

ON CNBC CHRYON NOW

SCOTUS REVERSES SOTOMAYOR, RULES AGAINST NEW HAVEN!

5-4 SAYS WHITE FIREFIGHTERS WERE DENIED PROMOTIONS BECAUSE OF THEIR RACE, exactly!! Wohooo!!!! Kennedy ruled with the conservatives to give us the ruling, THANK GAWD!!!!!

Okay EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!! Gonna make you sweat :0)

WOOHOO

EVERYBODY DANCE NOW!! SNOOPY DANCE!!!

Clip courtesy of bctvguy:

FULL DETAILS AND TEST RESULTS:
http://adversity.net/newhavenfd/defau…

A short round up of the Constitutional issue can be found below, courtesy of a Powerline commenter:

The Times has Ramesh Ponnuru’s argument: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/opinion/24pon…

To my mind, the crux of it seems to be this: “To conclude that New Haven acted unconstitutionally is to assume that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment mandated a policy of strict colorblindness by state and local governments.”

To me that seems like the plain meaning of “equal protection.” Equal is a very strict term, and does seem to imply colorblindness.