From the Detroit News, Tuesday, June 30:

Public employment, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday, cannot be administered by what columnist George F. Will has termed a "racial spoils system." The court ruled that New Haven, Conn., improperly threw out tests for firefighters seeking promotion to lieutenant and captain solely because the vast majority of applicants who did well enough to merit immediate promotion were white. The city argued that it would be liable to a lawsuit from minority firefighters if it hadn't thrown out the test.

But the court's 5-4 majority, in an opinion by Anthony Kennedy, noted that the city hired a testing firm that took extraordinary steps to ensure that the testing procedure was unbiased. It skewed its interviews toward minority supervisors in the Fire Department in developing the written test questions. The language of the written exams was below the 10th-grade level. Two-thirds of the supervisors who conducted interviews on the accompanying oral exams were minority members.

Based on these findings, the court's majority ruled that the city would not likely have been found liable for illegal testing practices and thus could not discriminate against the successful test-takers solely on the basis of their race. The dissent, written by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said the ruling would not stand the test of time.

It should. Treating people differently on the basis of their race is both illegal and simply wrong. It's an easily understood concept.

Employers now have a road map for developing unbiased promotion procedures -- and the principle that racial discrimination is impermissible has been usefully reinforced.