Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer and I cannot be held responsible for accuracy of the information below.

When it comes to becoming firefighters, Asian Americans just got screwed a little bit harder.

Let's backtrack a little bit.

As of sometime next month, Justice Sonia Sotomayor will become America's next Justice of the United States Supreme Court.   This isn't to say that everybody is happy about the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the next Associate Justice of the highest court in America. Progressives are rightfully disappointed that Sotomayor is unlikely to shift the balance of the court to one that is sane and rational.  Conservatives are irrationally upset that President Obama bested them once again.

I have mixed feelings about Sotomayor, but there's a point of interest I want to make clear in the Republican strategy leading up to, and during the confirmation hearings.

Republicans, knowing that a Sotomayor confirmation was already written in stone, (save for a "complete meltdown") decided to use Sotomayor's confirmation to roll out a new "War on Empathy" media strategy.  As we all heard from the conservative side, Judge Sotomayor is a "racist."  She is a judicial activist hell bent on enacting "reverse discrimination" against the whiteys.  She will commit an act more sinful than taking away guns or taking a stand against forced-pregnancy; her very presence will challenge the established American paradigm of rule by old, white men.  This MUST be stopped!

Enter on stage right, Frank Ricci, firefighter.  Exit on stage left, Joe the Plumber.

In order to prove their point, the conservatives latched onto a recent, blatantly activist 5-4 split Supreme Court decision that had a scent of Sotomayor on it: the infamous Ricci v. DeStefano.

The conservative story goes like this: Frank Ricci, a dyslexic fireman of the City of New Haven, had to work three times as hard to make a passing grade on a written exam for a promotion to lieutenant.  Ricci had even quit his night job and invested a substantial amount of money into the study material.  When the results came in and the evil city government realized that virtually no minority candidate passed the exam, they tossed the results and denied Ricci of his "rightful" promotion.  Ricci sued and lost the original court battle.  Never a quitter, Ricci appealed... only to have his rightful victory snatched away by an activist "wise Latina."  The Supreme Court exercised "judicial restraint" and restored the rightful honors and rewards to Ricci and his Caucasian firefighter friends.  Sotomayor must be punished for her racist decision and be shown her place in the world.

The conservatives' story ends there.  Yet, as always, reality is never as glamorous or black and white as stories go.  The real culprit was not a person, a man, nor a woman.  It was an uncertified test, written by an amateur private corporation that should have never been introduced in the first place.

What really happened: Per their charter, the New Haven Fire Department commissioned and distributed 2 tests to evaluate candidates that were up for promotions.  The test developer, IOS, a household name in developing entry exams for firefighters and police officers, designed a test based on what New Haven requested.  43 whites, 19 blacks, and 15 Latinos took the promotion-to-lieutenant test (Ricci included).  The results came in.  The top 10 candidates were all white.  23 whites, 8 blacks, and 8 Latinos took the promotion-to-captain test.  As a result, 7 whites and 2 Latinos would have been eligible for a promotion.  The city, concerned (and advised by their lawyer) that they may have given an unfair test thereby violating Title VII, opened up a hearing to see what the firefighters thought about validating the test results.  While some firefighters were "okay" with the results, other firefighters argued that some of the test questions weren't germane to their duty as New Haven firefighters.  

(From a LA Times Editorial: One question, for example, asked the test-takers whether fire equipment should be parked "uptown, downtown or underground when arriving at a fire." The question was based on information relevant to New York City firefighters, and was on the exam even though the city of New Haven has no "uptown" or "downtown.")  

Others complained that they didn't have equal access to the study materials (back-ordered books; lack of a support-network; the tragedy of being a first-generation immigrant).  After several testing experts made cases that showed how the IOC-designed tests had an adverse effect on ethnic minorities, the City decided to scrap the tests and put everybody back on a clean slate.  The City never paid IOS to certify that their tests were bias-neutral and life went on... until Ricci sued.  The ending is the same.

As Ginsburg notes in her dissent (she was so pissed she went out of her way to read it on the bench), nobody was racist.  Nobody was discriminating against anybody.  In fact, the opposite was true.  The City, by charter, was going to develop better, more bias-neutral tests that would have better evaluated the candidates on their ability to perform as firefighters.

The conservatives and the Right Wing Roberts Supreme Court had done it again.

Who got screwed?  Enter center stage, 1 Asian American New Haven firefighter.

Yes, according to an Amicus Brief filed by the Asian American Justice Center (AAJA) et al., there is exactly 1 Asian American firefighter in New Haven, a city of 800,000 with 35,000 Asian Americans. 1. Asian American firefighter.  He/she didn't even bother to take the test.

New Haven is not exactly unique either.  According to the same brief, Asian Americans represent less than 1.5% of all firefighters nationwide.  There's a reason for it all.  The brief explains it better than anything I can write.  It's a great brief, so I'll post it on a link below.

Amicus Brief by the AAJA et al.

Imagine that boats represent all our different communities.  In these multiple boats we're all in, those that are sailing towards equality for all Americans just got a chip blown off by the highest court of land, again.

While the decision of the US Supreme Court is merely a chip on our boat (the courts introduced a new precedent that a defendant must KNOW that he/she/they will be sued... instead of just thinking they might), Asian Americans happen to be in a particularly smaller boat than everyone else in terms of becoming a firefighter (actually, any public servant position).  Asian Americans are impacted the greatest, no matter how small the damage.

In the bigger picture, conservatives bringing up Ricci v. DeStefano in the Sotomayor hearings aren't doing this to bring down Sotomayor.  It has everything to do with attacking "empathy,” which, in other words, is equality for all Americans.  And for some of us Asian Americans who dreamed all their life of becoming a firefighter, we just got a little bit more screwed.  My first toy as a child was a fire truck.  Was yours too?