Dworkin Again

The second piece in Dworkin's essay that annoyed me (annoyance is the right term - there is no theoretical point underlying I think) was in this paragraph:

So the decision marks yet another step in the conservative justices' campaign to ban the most effective means of reducing racial tension in our country. They want to eliminate all vestiges of race-sensitive measures designed to help end racial stratification. They outlawed sensible school assignment plans in Louisville and Seattle that used racial tests.^[10] They hope to overrule Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's Grutter^[11] and now they have all but neutered the disparate impact provisions of the Civil Rights Act. Yes, it would have been unfortunate for the white firefighters who had studied so hard to make them take a new and different test. Sotomayor's panel expressed sympathy for them. But it is also bad—for community harmony and effective municipal service—when a city with a 60 percent minority population fields a police or fire department with few or no minority officers.

Well it is nice that the panel expressed sympathy for them.  In Plessy the justices were nice too.  I don't much care.  I rather doubt it meant much to the firefighters that the panel felt a bit sad about telling them they were out of luck (because of their or someone else's race).  If it did, then I suppose the African American firefighters now are now comforted.  I wouldn't. 

I think the panel ruled correctly, given the law before them.  I found Sotomayor's explanations of her panel decision and en banc decision completely satisfactory.  The Supreme Court decision changed things.

I have difficulty seeing why the racial composition of a fire department is of great import to a community.  I find that story, a bit opaque.  Firemen do not regulate the populace, they do not have extensive interactions with the community.  Dworkin's argument here, a pretty consistent position for him, is ironic in the sense that he seems to have no sense at all of economic strata or the effects of economic position on one's life and experience.  It is just race and sex that count for him, not class.  That is a mistake.