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Posted
Monday, June 29, 2009 7:19 PM
| By
Jessica Grose
A guest post from Double X intern Nicole Allan:
The plaintiffs in the hotly contested affirmative action case Ricci v. DeStefano
stood out among the crowd outside New Haven City Hall today. They wore
dress blues and wide smiles or poker-faces that occasionally cracked
into grins. They were, but for one, white, and they were celebrating
their win in a 5-4 decision handed down by a sharply divided Supreme Court.
Mingling on the sidewalk before the conference, plaintiff Frank
Ricci posed for photos with his family. Ben Vargas, the one Hispanic
amongst the 18 plaintiffs, grinned beneath his sunglasses and crisp
peaked cap. Attorney Karen Torre, surrounded by her clients and
jokingly donning one of their caps, delivered a statement in boldly
Obama-esque fashion: “We had the audacity of hope—that some court at
some point would enforce the letter and spirit of the civil rights
laws, accord to firefighters the recognition and respect that they
deserve, and reject attempts to lower professional standards of
competence for the sake of identity politics.”
It took some audacity indeed to ... (Read more at DoubleX.com.)
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