President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court was educated right here in Connecticut and has ties to the New Haven firefighters case that is before the nation's top court now.
Sonia Sotomayor is a 1979 Yale Law School graduate and became an editor of the Yale Law Journal at Yale Law School.
She has a connection to the hot button case now known as Ricci v. DeStefano, the New Haven firefighter reverse discrimination case that is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The case is about New Haven's decision to scrap results for a promotion exam because too few minorities passed.
A group now known as the "New Haven 20" -- the 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who were not promoted –- sued the city.
As an appellate judge, Sotomayor sided with the city of New Haven.
According to the New York Law Journal.
Local
Judge Sotomayor and her fellow panelists Robert D. Sack and Rosemary S. Pooler first issued a summary order affirming Judge Janet Arterton and then withdrew it, replacing it only with a terse, one-page opinion praising the judge's "thorough, thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion.”
