Supreme Court reverses Sotomayor on Ricci case

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of white firefighters in a Connecticut discrimination case, reversing court nominee Sonia Sotomayor’s previous ruling.

The 5-4 ruling was expected since the oral arguments in the Ricci v. DeStefano. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the swing vote in the case, wrote the majority opinion.

The case has become controversial for Sotomayor during her confirmation process. Sotomayor previously ruled in favor of New Haven, which threw out promotion test results because minority applicants, on a whole, performed worse than white candidates and therefore the test would have only benefited white applicants.

Conservatives have sought to paint the lower court ruling as discriminatory toward whites.

It should be noted that Sotomayor upheld a lower court decision in that ruling.

jeremy.jacobs@digital-staging.thehill.com