REVERSE DISCRIMINATIONS???

Reading about Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s role in the case of Ricci vs DeStanfano brought back memories of my experience in the same arena in 1993. As you probably know, the current brouhaha involves the rights of the City of New Haven, Connecticut firefighters who took a civil service exam for promotion to lieutenant and captain. The City retained an outside consultant to design the exam to ensure it was job related and not racially biased. Of the some 118 firefighters who took the exam, 59 earned passing grades, however due to the limited vacancies only the 19 top scorers were eligible for promotion. This group consisted of 17 whites and two Hispanics, but none of the 9 black firefighters with passing scores.

New Haven’s Civil Service Board threw out the results -- refusing to promote any on the list and calling for new tests. That triggered a civil lawsuit from the 19 firefighters claiming reverse discrimination because they were white. The US District Court denied their claim on the basis that the 9 black firefighters who passed the test but did not score high enough to qualify for promotion did not receive promotions either.

An appeal was filed with the US 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals on which Judge Sotomayor serves. She was a member of the three judge panel which also dismissed the appeal. The full 2nd Circuit Court voted not to rehear the case over the protest of Judge Jose Cabranes who suggested that the firefighters had not been treated fairly.  Subsequently an appeal was made to the US Supreme Court who agreeed to hear the case -- and did hear it in April 2009.  A Supreme Court decision is now expected in July. 

You can decide for yourself as to whether reverse discrimination actually occurred to those New Haven firefighters, inflicted by the City of New Haven in failing to stand up for the rights of all firefighters regardless of race.

Now, here’s the next case for your evaluation, which happened back in 1993 in which I was a primary player. I was encouraged by some Milwaukee Area Technical College officials to apply for a MATC Board position, representing employers and Ozaukee County. The appointment process is complex -- concluding in a day-long interview procedure. I was selected for one of the three vacancies along with a West Allis publisher and an African-American attorney, who was appointed to represent employees.

I was informed that "I was in," with only a rubber stamp review from the Wisconsin Technical College System Board in Madison. So I hit the ground running, by meeting with the MATC President and other Officers and Deans as well as continuing Board members. Was I surprised to wake up one morning to be informed that the WTCS Board had rejected all three of us appointees and required a redo of the entire appointment process?

A little investigation turned up the facts. The black attorney apparently had represented some company managements in legal cases involving employees and that did not sit well the Local 212 union. So Local 212 appealed that appointment to the WTCS Board on the basis he did not fill out the paperwork properly. So the WTCS Board was faced with the decision of rejecting the black MATC Board appointee while approving the two white appointees.

Can you envision the consternation of these esteemed WTCS Board members faced with that dilemma – reject a black candidate and approve two white candidates – OH MY!! That would require courage. Courage, of course, is not a characteristic often exhibited by public servants and there was no "profile in courage" example in view within the WTCS Board that day. Whereupon the Board voted to deny the appointments of all three appointees and to redo the appointment process. I called it reverse discrimination at the time, but your opinion may differ. In any case, the media did not care to pick up the issue and I was not about to initiate legal action to secure a volunteer assignment that required considerable time with zero remuneration.

To end the story, I was asked to go through the complex appointment process once again. Disenchanted with the whole endeavor I replied with a firm "NO." Subsequently over the years, I have met with MATC officials and participated in MATC events with no hard feelings. I always reminded them that I had the best of both worlds: "I was elected but did not have to serve!"