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| June 29th, 2009 |
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Media Contact(s): Mark Eddington and Andrea Saul, 202-224-5251 |
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HATCH STATEMENT ON SUPREME COURT REVERSING SOTOMAYOR FIREFIGHTERS DECISION
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WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a longtime member and former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, made the following statement today after the Supreme Court overturned a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in which Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor participated:
“The Supreme Court today correctly held that race-based employment decisions must be justified by facts, not fear,” said Hatch. “These firefighters, who worked long and hard for it, were denied the chance for promotion because of their race.
“In the twenty-first century, race discrimination requires more justification than the fear of being sued. The Second Circuit should have recognized the serious and unique issues this case raised and given it the thorough treatment it deserved.”
The appeals court, in a very short per curiam opinion, upheld the decision by New Haven, Connecticut, to disregard results of a firefighter promotion exam because racial minorities did not score highly enough. Today, the Supreme Court held that discarding the results of a fairly designed and administered employment test solely because of the racial distribution of the result violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
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