Ricci Decision Re-Looks Basic Premises
Well, as often happens, the new decision is out but it will take months or longer to understand what it means. The US Supreme Court issued its decision in Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven, Connecticut firefighters case. Workplace profs have observed:
"To say that concern over the possibility of a discriminatory effect is itself a discriminatory motive seems to create a terrible theory of discrimination, a moral equivalence, that automatically pits groups against one another in competition for jobs. It's also an implicit rejection of the basis for the Court's early decisions on Title VII, that discrimination in employment was common,. . . "
That causes me concern. The entire premise of Title VII, as passed in 1964, was that discrimination was a real part of the workplace. If we have to start re-evaluating basic premises like that, then employment law will essentially start all over.
