Looking for lunch-hour reading? I’d recommend Justice Samuel Alito’s concurring opinion in Ricci v. DeStefano. Alito’s devastating narrative argues that the real reason the city of New Haven threw out the results of its fire-fighter exam was “the desire to placate a politically important racial constituency.” The chief culprit is the Reverend Boise Kimber, a political fixer straight out of Bonfire of the Vanities. Conventional wisdom holds that the Court’s negation of Judge Sotomayor’s Appeals Court holding in Ricci won’t affect her confirmation. Probably! But the parts of her confirmation hearings dealing with Ricci certainly will make the most news, and may harm her favorability ratings. In a recent column for Time, Christopher Caldwell noted that:
And the debate over affirmative action that the Ricci decision provokes will not redound to the Democrats’ advantage.
