HatTip to Hube for this entirely predictable result of “diversity” from Delaware:
WILMINGTON — An attorney for a city police detective suing his employer told a jury Monday that her client was passed over for promotion because he is black.
Kenneth A. Boyd, who has worked for Wilmington for about 20 years, alleges in his federal civil suit that in April 2004 Wilmington Police Chief Michael J. Szczerba made an exception to his normal procedures to elevate a Hispanic male to the rank of sergeant instead of Boyd.
In court, a city attorney denied the racism charge and told the jury that normal procedures were followed and that Szczerba has fostered a diverse police force.
In implementing “diversity,” of course, “normal procedures” include discrimination.
Besides, the city argued (really!), it didn’t discriminate against Boyd because he was black because at the same time it also discriminated against others because they were white!
First Assistant City Solicitor Rosamaria Tassone told the jury the evidence does not support Boyd’s allegations. She said in the case of the promotion Boyd sought, two more-senior white officers also were passed over in order to promote a Hispanic officer.
If I could make this stuff up, I could make a fortune writing fiction. On the other hand, fiction like this wouldn’t be believable.
UPDATE [4 October]
Thanks to Hube, again, for pointing to another chapter in the Wilmington–in–Wonderland case, a case in which a black plaintiff makes the argument usually regarded as right-wing racist — that race- or ethnicity-based preferential treatment is inherently discriminatory.
In this chapter, really a fitting sequel to the first chapter discussed above, Wilmington city attorney Rosamaria Tassone repeats her remarkable argument that the police department didn’t discriminate against blacks because it discriminates, apparently with some regularity, against whites and women.
In closing arguments today, [the plaintiff] Boyd’s attorney Jeffrey Martin told a jury that … his client was passed over for promotion because he is a black person.
….
The attorney for the city, Rosamaria Tassone, then asked the jury how Boyd could charge racism when black and Hispanic people and women have all received promotions before white male officers.
She said the evidence was clear that Wilmington Police Chief Michael Szczerba had no animosity toward black people.
Ms. Tassone apparently suffers under the delusion that state action can be discriminatory, and hence a violation of the law or the Constitution or both, only if it is motivated by “animosity.”
One often encounters this argument, usually couched in terms of “stigma.” According to this view, even the most blatant racial or ethnic discrimination is acceptable as long as it is not intended to “stigmatize” the victims. (Curiously, or not, that argument is swept conveniently under the rug whenever plaintiffs claim that this or that policy, although it was not based on a discriminatory intent, had a “disparate impact” on the group to which the plaintiff belongs.)
I’ve always found the argument that discrimination without “animosity” is not discrimination so unpersuasive as to be almost peculiar. I wonder, for example, what Ms. Tassone’s response would have been if, when she applied for her position with the Wilmington city attorney’s office, she had been told, “Ms. Tassone, you’re clearly more qualified than our other applicants, but I’m afraid we simply can’t hire another Italian right now, especially not another Italian woman. Mind you, we have nothing at all against Italians. Indeed, the last several attorneys we hired were all Italian women, and they’re excellent, but, you see that’s the problem. We’re going to have a real problem if we don’t get an Irish guy in here right away….”
I’m sure Ms. Tassone would have been perfectly satisfied with this explanation of her rejection, since no “animosity” against Italians or women was involved. Aren’t you?
[LaShawn Barber has also discussed this case, impressively as usual.]
Surely, you should be aware of the facts of a case before you write an article, huh? First, the hispanic officer was hired not because of his race but because he was the most qualified. That was the issue. The black officer felt that he should have been promoted because he was the most senior. The black officer and the two white officers had more seniority then the hispanic officer who was more qulaified for the position. KNOW YOUR FACTS.
Surely, you should be aware of the facts of a case before you write an article, huh?
Well, no, not necessarily. This is a blog, not a platform for learned articles or even, for heavens’ sake, a newspaper, with whatever standards for accuracy they employ. One virtue of blogs, as your welcome comment demonstrates, is that they elicit corrections where necessary (and even where not).
I commented on a case as presented in a local (to the case) newspaper article. Unless that article was wrong, the plaintif, who of course believes he was the most qualified, claims that he was discriminated against because he is black. The city claims that it has no bias against blacks, and as evidence, I suppose, for that claim points to the fact that it also passed over whites and women for the position in question.
I certainly hope the Hispanic’s qualifications were a part (a big part, one would hope) of the city’s defense, but I still fail to see how greater awareness of “the facts” of the case than I have would have altered what I wrote.
Good response. For the record though, the hispanic officer’s qualifications was the heart of the City’s defense.