Personal Reflections from Hearing the Oral Arguments in the Ricci v. DeStefano Supreme Court Case
By Dan A. Biddle, Ph.D.
CEO, Biddle Consulting Group, Inc.
On April 22, 2009 the U.S. Supreme Court (“USSC”) heard the oral arguments offered by each side in the Ricci v. Destefano testing case. In this case, 18 candidates (17 Whites and 1 Hispanic), who successfully passed two exams for promotion to Lieutenant and Captain positions, are suing the City of New Haven, Connecticut for refusing to certify the exams and make the promotions because the tests had adverse impact (whites scored higher than African-Americans) and were not justifiably valid. The plaintiffs argued that their rights under Title VII and the 14th Amendment Equal Protection Clause were violated.
One of the major questions being evaluated in this case is: Should the City be allowed to pull the exam results because they believed the tests themselves were flawed, and also knew of other lower-adverse impact alternatives?