Civil rights in court spotlight: Discrimination, voting cases awaiting justices

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WASHINGTON — When the Supreme Court returns to the bench Monday for the second half of its annual term, justices will hear several cases that could make this the most important session for civil rights law in years.

These cases will further shape the court under Chief Justice John Roberts, which will end its third full session this summer.

"At the beginning of this term in October, I don't think many people thought it would be shaping up to be as significant as it is now in terms of civil rights cases," says Columbia University law professor Theodore Shaw, a former counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Among cases the justices will take up:

•A "reverse discrimination" claim that arose when a Connecticut city rejected results of a civil service test for firefighter promotions because whites scored disproportionately higher than blacks.

•A major voting rights dispute over whether the Department of Justice may still oversee state electoral law changes based on the states' history of bias after the nation elected its first African-American president.

•A long-running Arizona dispute over whether the state spends enough money to provide English-language classes for non-native speakers under U.S. education rules.

http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090218/court18_st.art.htm