The XX Factor: What women really think.

How the New Haven Firefighters Ruling Affects Sotomayor

On Slate, Walter Dellinger and Linda Greenhouse agree that Judge Sotomayor has little to fear from today's Supreme Court ruling in favor of the white New Haven firefighters who sued their city when it threw out the results of a test for promotions. Justice Kennedy's majority opinion barely mentions the brief panel opinion Sotomayor signed. Justice Alito's concurrence is a little more critical, but not much. Court observers, including me, will patiently explain that the Supreme Court came up with a whole new rule in its decision today, which it wasn't Sotomayor's job, as a Second Circuit judge, to do. This is how the law is supposed to develop: The lower courts abide by their own precedents, and the Supreme Court's prior rulings, until the high bench tell them to shift course.