Oral Argument transcript in Ricci

The transcript from today's argument in Ricci v. DeStefano is up here. I've skimmed it enough to see that there's a lot there to digest more fully. My initial impression is that the court seemed to divide along familiar lines with Ginsburg, Souter, Stevens, and Breyer questioning the petitioners fairly heavily, and Roberts, Scalia, and Alito questioning the respondents closely. Kennedy questioned both sides about equally, and Thomas was characteristically quiet.

Most of the argument seemed to focus on whether the decision not to certify the test was race discrimination or simply racial consciousness and what kinds of evidence an employer would need to have before it could act in this manner.

I'll provide a more detailed analysis this evening, after I've had a chance to analyze it more closely.

MM