摘要：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.
As with every case that reaches the USSC, this case
had a complex history. In the original case, the federal
district court granted the defendants’ motion for
summary judgment. On appeal, the United States Court
of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the lower
court’ s ruling, reasoning that the City, by refusing to
certify the results of the promotional exam, was trying
to fulfill its obligations under Title VII (by not moving
forward with an invalid test that had adverse impact),
and was therefore protected in its actions. By agreeing
to hear the case, the USSC is now charged with the
difficult task of deciding whether a City can throw out
the results of an exam process that they believed (based
on a post-administration validity review) would not
survive a Title VII validation challenge
