Who is Frank Ricci?

As Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sits through daily hearings with everyone questioning her "Wise Latina" comment and her decision in the Ricci vs. DeStefano case, one might wonder who Frank Ricci is? After reading an article about Frank Ricci in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, a part of me understands why he sued the City of New Haven. Ricci, despite having a learning disability, scored high marks on an exam that would have earned him a promotion. However since a majority of Blacks and Hispanics did not fare well on the same exam, the city of New Haven decided to abandoned the results all together and not consider anyone for promotion. This does not seem fair as one should not be penalized for achieving the high scores necessary for consideration. The city of New Haven should not have abandoned the test results. Why have the exam in the first place if you are not going to secure the results?

The other part of me thinks about how this is just another situation where results of a qualification exam has produced a disparate impact among races. This is comparable to the SAT where many colleges are considering to exclude from their application process. Are qualification exams going to be a thing of the past? We will see in the near future.