New Haven firefighters addressed the Supreme Court yesterday in a case examining whether promotion decisions were race-based or ?race-conscious?. The city decided about 5 years ago not to use exams to make promotion decisions after white test-takers passed at twice the rate of black test-takers. As a result, 20 firefighters are claiming they were wrongly denied promotions. The city argued that it followed federal and state rules, and that it threw out the tests over concern that using the heavily skewed scores would violate anti-discrimination laws. The city also noted that it didn't alter the scores or promote low scorers based on race; rather, it threw out all of the scores entirely. A ruling that the decision was race-based would make the decision discriminatory.
See "Justices Zero In On Race-Based Distinctions", Carole Bass, New Haven Independent, April 22, 2009