Posted by
Mike on Friday, May 29, 2009 6:45:44 PM
http://westernperspective.blogspot.com/
The effect of the actions taken by the City of New Haven to bring about
racial diversity was to pull the rug out from under the firefighters
who honestly believed that preparing for and taking the civil service
exam in good faith would thereby lead to a chance of gaining a
promotion to Lieutenant within the Fire Department.
As a
question of law, does the City owe a duty to its citizens to act in
good faith when administering civil service exams? This is over and
above the question of whether it was simply stupid of City officials to
administer the exam and then throw out the results because they didn't
like the outcome. Subsidiarity bars the federal courts from interfering
simply on the basis of the City's prudential judgments, no matter how
bad those judgments were for the people.
Were the White and
Hispanic firefighters who passed the bogus test discriminated against?
The answer is no. They were simply made to look like fools because the
City did not in fact promote anyone from within the Department based
upon its own predetermined criteria.
Do these firefighters then have a cause of action?
Clearly
there is a duty to act in good faith. If the City essentially held out
a carrot and said "Here, take this", and then reneged on its promises
to promote the top scorers, then this is a case of government lying to
the people. Since the City officials did not act in good faith, they
breached their duty of truthfulness and fairness and should be held
accountable for the harm they have caused to the firefighters who took
the exam in good faith and would have been promoted were it not for the
City's duplicity.