EthnicMajority

While the election of Barack Obama has signaled a more liberal attitude towards diversity in politics by the American public, we shouldn’t forget that the Supreme Court still has considerable authority over race relations through its case decisions. Here the Bush legacy lives on in the form of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito. Their appointments by Obama’s predecessor have turned the court far to the conservative side and their opinions thus far on race issues have not been encouraging.

This session the court will take on four significant civil rights cases.

The most high-profile case involves a promotions test for New Hampshire firefighters the results of which were set aside because no African Americans and only one Hispanic American passed. The firefighters who passed the test are suing to eliminate any diversity considerations from the promotion eligibility process.

There is also a challenge to the Voting Rights Act that questions Congress’ authority to enforce voting rights at the State and local level, an English-only case in Arizona public schools, and discriminatory lending case in New York.

The conservative leanings of the court already do not create an optimistic view toward potential rulings, but it seems that the country is in a different place on race relations since Obama’s election. The election of the first African American President has created an “anything is possible” attitude, in spite of a worsening economy, two wars raging on, and fragile international relations.

With all of these problems and a black man as President, are race relations even an issue? Stay tuned to see how the Supreme Court gives its two cents.

For more information, see related stories in the USA Today and Washington Post.

Ethnicmajority Civil Rights page.

A federal court yesterday rejected the first legal challenge to a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, in a case that legal scholars view as an important test of one of the country’s seminal pieces of civil rights legislation.

The ruling came in a lawsuit brought by a municipal utility board in Texas, which argued that part of the law is costly and unconstitutional. Congress reauthorized the law in 2006.

The utility board is likely to appeal directly to the Supreme Court, offering opponents a chance to test the Voting Rights Act before a court that has grown more conservative in recent years.

“This has been about getting it to the Supreme Court,” said Richard Hasen, a professor at Loyola University Law School in Los Angeles who specializes in election law. “Conservative opponents of the law have put a lot of eggs in this basket. This was set up as a test case.”

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One day last October, Jose Solorio was sorting through his mail at his home in Orange County when he came upon a letter written in Spanish that stunned him.

The mailer — which he later learned was sent to 14,000 other naturalized citizens with Latino surnames — warned immigrants who vote they are committing a crime punishable by jail time and deportation.

As a Santa Ana city councilman, former state Senate fellow and graduate of Harvard University’s School of Government, Solorio knew that isn’t true.

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