Justice Sam Alito, from his concurring opinion in the Ricci case, written mostly as a rebuke to the liberals' dissent, my emphasis:
Therefore, the decision below, which sustained the entry of summary judgment for respondents, cannot be affirmed unless no reasonable jury could find that the City's asserted reason for scrapping its test—concern about disparate-impact liability—was a pretext and that the City's real reason was illegitimate, namely, the desire to placate a politically important racial constituency.
I'd say that's a pretty startling accusation of bad faith on Alito's part. Namely, Alito seems to believe that the sole reason for the city throwing out the tests was a fear of pissing off black voters, noting ties between New Haven Mayor Michael DeStefano and the Rev. Boise Kimber, a local black leader known for having made racially inflammatory comments in the past. Alito basically alleges that Kimber browbeat city officials and the mayor into not certifying the results by threatening the political consequences from the black community in New Haven. This is important because Alito is arguing that the decision to throw out the tests was not based on a good faith concern about disparate impact but about avoiding the political consequence of a backlash among black voters.
Of course, it also needs to be said that there's no way Italian Americans could be considered anything like a "politically important" ethnic constituency in the Northeast.
The number of concurring opinions here--Scalia filed one as well--rebuking the dissent of the court's four liberals is interesting. The court's conservatives are protesting, one might say, a little too much.
-- A. Serwer
