CNN.com reported Wednesday that the city of New Haven will promote 14 firefighters who were involved in a reverse discrimination case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 14 were part of a group one Hispanic and 19 white firefighters, the "New Haven 20," who fought the city after it threw out a promotion exam given in 2003 which too few minorities passed. They claim that the city gave preferential treatment to blacks.
The U.S. District Court issued a judgment that said that the city violated civil rights when it threw out the exams.
Matt Marcarelli, a white firefighter, earned the top score on the written exam in 2003, but after the city reviewed the test results Marcarelli was denied a promotion.
"Every day I go to work I've got to pin this lieutenant's badge on me, it reminds me I got screwed out of a captain's badge because of the color of my skin," Marcarelli said before the promotion, ABC News reports.
Out of New Haven's 221 firefighters, blacks make up about a third of the workforce.
The 14 firefighters will be promoted to either lieutenant or captain.
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