DENVER POST: Harsanyi: Don't give Sotomayor free ride

Title click to read David Harsanyi's great op-ed piece in todays DENVER POST.

"Take, if you will, one of Sotomayor's most criticized decisions. The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Ricci vs. Destefano, a reverse discrimination case involving the New Haven, Conn., fire department.

After the department had administered a test to promote 15 captains and lieutenants, no African-Americans had passed. The city trashed the exam and refused to hire the folks who did pass, concocting a new test instead. One of the applicants who was denied was 34-year- old Frank Ricci, a dyslexic who had worked his tail off to pass the test.

When the 2nd Circuit got to the case, Sotomayor joined a short opinion dismissing it. It prompted her colleague Jose Cabranes — appointed by President Bill Clinton and widely considered a liberal — to claim that Sotomayor's "opinion contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case."