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February 10, 2012
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Mark Clayton: How did Anonymous hackers eavesdrop on FBI and Scotland Yard?
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Victoria Kim: Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling
February 2, 2012
Jim Carney: Wrong number call may have saved her life
Reza Kahlili : Ex-CIA spy in Iran's Revolutionary Guard: What Obama doesn't grasp about striking deals with Tehran
Tina Susman: For woodchuck rescuer, every day is Groundhog Day
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January 31, 2012
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Suzanne Bohan: Warning: Nap-deprived tots missing more than sleep, study finds
Meg Handley: Banks Revamping Rewards Programs to Woo Customers
January 27, 2012
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Yochonon Donn: In liberal New York City, fervently-Orthodox Jews may soon be getting a district to call their own
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Katy Hopkins: New budget rules may affect how much money you get for college
January 26, 2012
Ed Koch: To the New York Times, calling for the murder of Jews by those capable of having their incitement taken seriously isn't news
Jeannine Stein: Mental illness struck one in five U.S. adults in 2010: Report
January 25, 2012
Richard Simon: House passes two bills endorsing the use of religious symbols at military memorials
Fred Weir: Putin: Multiethnic Russia cannot survive as a US-style 'melting pot'; must find its own way
Susan Johnston: 5 Sneaky Coupon Strategies Consumers Should Watch Out For
January 24, 2012
Carol Clark: The price of your soul: How your brain decides whether to 'sell out'
Caroline B. Glick: America lost most in 'Arab Spring'. Sadly, many voters still don't grasp the extent
Warren Richey: Drug criminal scores win in GPS ruling from conservative-leaning high court
Erika Bolstad: Black conservatives gather to talk about gaining strength
January 23, 2012
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Ali Safi: U.S. envoy gives Taliban terms for peace talks
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January 12, 2012
Warren Richey: Landmark Supreme Court ruling a 'resounding win' for religious groups
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John Fauber : Statins found to raise diabetes risk in postmenopausal women
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January 11, 2012
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Tom Hussain: Pakistan -- recipient of more than $21 billion in civilian and military aid -- speeds pursuit of Iranian pipeline, defying US
David G. Savage: High court signals it won't be loosening TV's 'indecency' rules
Stephen Ceasar: Oklahoma's Islamic law amendment can't go into effect, court rules
January 10, 2012
Reza Kahlili: From an ex-CIA spy: US must exploit new split in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
Karen Kaplan: Study: Nicotine replacement products ineffective when used in real-life situations
January 9, 2012
Michael Doyle: Put through legal hell over dream home, couple fought back hard --- all the way to Supreme Court
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Jewish World Review
July 3, 2009
/ 11 Tamuz 5769
Bless This Honorable Court
By
Paul Greenberg
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
In what let's hope will prove a landmark decision, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that all Americans have civil rights not just those belonging to certain specified groups. Whereupon said honorable court proceeded to protect those rights. And justice was done. Take that, cynics.
In a case out of New Haven, Conn., a bare majority of the court ruled that a group of firefighters who passed the test for promotion should indeed be promoted. How remarkable. Especially in these strange times of groupthink and sociospeak.
Openings for captains and lieutenants in New Haven's fire department are limited, but the ones available are now to be filled in due course on the basis of, of all things these strange days, objective criteria. Like scoring high on a test for promotion.
When not enough black firefighters passed the test to suit the city's political movers-and-shakers, they had decided to ignore it. Shades of how the old Jim Crow laws used to work in these Southern latitudes. Only now the colors have been reversed. But the basic proposition has been retained that one's place in society, as in old India, stems from caste, not merit. Back in the bad old days, the system was jimmied in favor of the white folks. Or to put it in today's proper racespeak, Caucasians were privileged. But some things don't change: In both instances, the fixers didn't count on the Supreme Court of the United States disrupting their game.
Forgive me if I don't jump up and down in celebration. Deciding that all men are created equal regardless of race by a vote of 5 to 4 wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement of the Declaration of Independence as the Fourth of July approached. But with this Supreme Court, court, you celebrate even the narrowest victory for clear law and simple justice.
The four dissenters on the court all had their reasons, or rather poor excuses. My favorite ploy was the one used by Her Honor Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who began her opinion by expressing sympathy for the firefighters whose rights she was about to deny under color of law. She dutifully noted that "the white firefighters who scored high on New Haven's promotional exams understandably attract this court's sympathy."
That's ni-i-i-ce, to quote the phrase of a very large, very black man who was attending a meeting of the Pine Bluff, Ark., school board at a time when America's own caste system was falling apart. He was in town as a representative of the U.S. government specifically the Department of Education, if memory serves. It was his job to consider whether the school board's attempt to evade the letter and spirit of the law would result in its losing federal aid. When one of the segs on the school board went on and on about how much he loved black folks and would do nothing to stand in the way of their equal (if decidedly separate) education, Mr. Federal Official just looked at him, expressionless, and let a long silence descend. No doubt to let the sheer hypocrisy of that claim resound in the room.
And then all Mr. Federal Official said, his strong white teeth shining as his smile widened and widened into one great big grin, was: That's ni-i-i-ce. His phrase came back to me after all these years on reading Mrs. Justice Ginsburg's words of sympathy for the firefighters whose rights she was about to gut. That was a long ago, but I haven't forgotten the scene. Or the phrase.
I have to admit that The Hon. Samuel Alito, in his opinion concurring with the majority in this case, came up with as good or perhaps even better response to Justice Ginsburg's sympathy card: " 'Sympathy' is not what petitioners have a right to demand," wrote Justice Alito. "What they have a right to demand is evenhanded enforcement of the law of Title VII's prohibition against discrimination based on race. And that is what, until today's decision, has been denied them."
Justice and he certainly earned the title with his concurring opinion Alito had made his and justice's point. His words were almost as eloquent as those quotation marks he put around "sympathy." For what good is sympathy without acting on it, words without action, crocodile tears without doing what one can to stand up for those who have been treated unjustly? As these firefighters had been by one court after another till they got to the highest in the land, G-d bless this honorable court.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here.
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