The justices also let stand two controversial lower court decisions, outlawing Texas college admissions programs favoring blacks and Hispanics and upholding California's Proposition 209, which bans preferences based on race or sex in public hiring, contracting and school admissions. If the Supreme Court had embraced the lower court reasoning, it would stop companies from making employment decisions based on race except to remedy past discrimination. Yesterday, Taxman's lawyer, Stephen E. Klausner, said his client was pleased with the resolution. Meanwhile, Williams, who was never actually a party to the lawsuit, was reportedly upset over the board's settlement. She did not return telephone calls but in an earlier interview with The Washington Post expressed concern that people in her community and outside had begun regarding her as someone who kept her job only because she was black.
Diversity is important.
They need someone they can relate to. Williams said the case had divided the two teachers and their high school community. And the case had appeared ready to divide the high court, which in recent years has been deciding cases by one vote, typically that of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. The lower court decision in Piscataway Township v. Taxman had gone further. Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands.