While People Go On About Michael Jackson, Supreme Court Makes It More Difficult For Black Folks To Get Promoted At Work

While people go on about the death of Michael Jackson, an adult who often kept company with children that were not his own, the United States Supreme Court has made it more difficult for black folks to get promoted at work.

In a 5-4 decision , the Court ruled that the city of New Haven, Connecticut could not consider race in the context of an exam the city had used to help determine firefighter promotions.  

( Above—A memorial for Michael Jackson.)   

Here is a story on the case and the Supreme Court’s findings. 

Here is an editorial  on the ruling from the New York Times.

From the editorial—

The new standards announced by the court will make it much harder for employers to discard the results of hiring and promotion tests once they are administered, even if they have a disproportionately negative impact on members of a given racial group….Public employers that use civil service examinations and similar tests will be most directly affected, but the principle announced by the court applies to all employers and all sorts of procedures used to rank and sort potential and current employees….Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reading a dissenting statement from the bench, said the majority had undermined a crucial civil rights law. “Congress endeavored to promote equal opportunity in fact, and not simply in form,” she said. “The damage today’s decision does to that objective is untold.”

Here is the NAACP viewpoint on this decision. 

Here is the text of the Court’s decision.

What are the odds that the New Haven Fire Department has been an equal opportunity employer over the years?

If people want to line up  and recall the life of a celebrity while a right-wing Supreme Court makes it harder for them to get ahead on the job—I can’t do anything about that. 

Even with a black man as President, many in this nation are eager to reverse the gains of the Civil Rights movement and to undo progress we have made in this nation. 

I can’t decide for others about what they need to be focusing on in life.

( Below–An Associated Press photo of New Haven firefighters celebrating outside the Supreme Court.)