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We feel that we're fighting for our rights. Our civil rights to be treated equally like our counterparts," says New Haven fire Lieutenant Mathew Marcarelli on a Fox News "special investigation." The video cuts to a blurry scene of lit-up police and fire trucks, and then scenes inside a New Haven firehouse.

Speaking over eerie music fit for a mystery movie, Marcarelli says finding out that he wouldn't be promoted to captain in 2003 — although he scored high enough on a promotions test — shook his beliefs. "After all that preparation it was just gut wrenching," he tells Fox News.

New Haven firehouse politics exploded into the national spotlight last week when the discrimination case of Ricci v. DeStefano went before the U.S. Supreme Court. The so-called New Haven 20 — 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic, who sued the city for denying them promotions five years ago — were the talk of the nation as the highest court in the land weighed their fate, and that of a key provision of the Civil Rights Act.

The firefighters sued after the city threw out a promotional exam because it believed the test was racially biased. Out of 27 African Americans who took the test, not one scored high enough to be promoted — and city officials feared that opened them to lawsuits.

But the city never proved whether the test was flawed: The testing company that created the exam offered to audit the test for "adverse impact" — essentially whether the results pointed to racial bias — but the city didn't want to see it.

Five years and two appeals later, the Supreme Court will now rule on the case. The decision could be sweeping, not just affecting the New Haven 20 but also impacting the limits of using race in hiring and promotion across the country.

Those siding with the New Haven 20 are calling for anti-discrimination laws to be loosened or abolished altogether. Supporters of the city say the law is key to leveling the playing field in a system that has historically disadvantaged minorities — and losing it could set back civil rights.

But many people, including some the Obama administration, are questioning whether the city ditched the test for the right reasons. Revisiting the history of the case — and the city's habit of letting politics and nepotism interfere with hiring and promotions — could easily convince you that a few better choices by New Haven might have avoided this whole mess.

First a little history: Back in 2003, 118 firefighters took tests for promotion to captain and lieutenant. The city paid $100,000 to I/O Solutions, a testing company from Illinois, which observed and interviewed New Haven firefighters — two-thirds of whom were white — to see which parts of their jobs were relevant and important.

I/O Solutions then created a 100-question test and a detailed study guide. The city offered firefighters a three-month study period. During those three months, Frank Ricci, who's dyslexic, paid $1,000 for the study materials to be read on tape because he learns better by listening. Greg Boivin resigned from part-time jobs to devote more time to studying. Ban Vargas took leave from his part-time job to study. Christopher Parker studied in the hospital while waiting for his wife to give birth.

Promotion exams are a big deal because they're offered so infrequently — sometimes only once a decade.

The test was divided into a written exam, worth 60 percent of the total score and an oral exam worth 40 percent. For the oral part, I/O Solutions brought in assessors from across the country, two-thirds of whom were minorities, to listen to and judge the firefighters' answers.

To pass the test, candidates needed to score 70 percent or above. Those with the top scores were eligible for promotion. But when the results came in, nearly all the leading scores belonged to whites.

Between January and March of 2004, the city's Civil Service Commission — a group of mayoral appointees — held five hearings on whether or not to certify the tests. Tensions were high at the meetings. Dozens of people attended.

At one point, Rev. Boise Kimber — who heads First Calvary Baptist church, is a fire commissioner and an important vote getter for the mayor in the city's African American neighborhoods — suggested that since the civil service commission was composed of all whites and one Hispanic, the board wasn't qualified to make a decision on whether or not the test was racist.

At another point, Kimber said there would be political consequences if the whites were promoted. White firefighters threatened to sue if the city didn't certify the tests. Black firefighters threatened to sue if the city did.

At the first two hearings, firefighters spoke. Frank Ricci talked about the time he spent studying for the test. Another firefighter said the test was fair because all the questions came directly from the study material. A third complained that test questions weren't relatable to New Haven; he gave an example of a question that asked whether firefighters should park their truck facing uptown or downtown while fighting a fire. There is no uptown in New Haven.

The firefighters' union president suggested the city pay for a "validation study" to check if the test was race-neutral. But that never happened.

I/O Solutions' contract called for them to write and share a technical report on the test's content validity to establish the city's lawful use of the exam. I/O Solutions wrote the report, but the city didn't want it.

I/O Solutions also wrote a letter about the company's confidence in the exam, but then-Human Resource director Tina Burgett didn't share the letter with the board.

It seems like the city didn't want to know if the test was valid or not. When contacted for this article, I/O Solutions wouldn't comment on the test. Nor would Tom Ude, who was the city's top attorney at the time.

At the last two hearings, a Texas psychiatrist who runs a business in competition with I/O Solutions admitted he hadn't looked closely at the test. Still, he told the board, via phone, the test results had "relatively high adverse impact" — meaning there were significantly different pass rates for whites and blacks — and his company's tests were "significantly and dramatically" more fair.

It's common for whites to outperform minorities on standardized tests, the psychiatrist said, but he suggested other tests might be "much more valid in terms of identifying the best potential supervisors in your fire department." (Like his test, perhaps?)

At the same hearing, a fire specialist for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said he had looked "extensively" at the tests and "felt the questions were relevant for both exams."

A third "expert witness" — a psychology professor specializing in race — hadn't even looked at the tests. She told the board that, statistically speaking, the New Haven test results were in line with what experts would have predicted.

During the period of the hearings, e-mails went back and forth among the mayor's staff about the importance of convincing the board not to certify the tests. The e-mails also suggested that if the board voted in favor of the tests, the mayor wouldn't allow the promotions to go forward.

The commission tied 2-2, and the city threw out the test scores. Mayor John DeStefano never had to send out a prepared press release declaring that the city would override the board and not allow the promotions to go forward.

The New Haven 20 filed suit claiming the city violated their rights under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which protects workers from discrimination based on race or ethnicity, whether it is intended or not. The city's defense relies on Title VII too: They argue they had to throw out the test, otherwise the city would be unintentionally discriminating against minorities.

But the New Haven 20 claim that to throw out a test, the city had to do three things: show there is a discriminatory effect; prove the test questions are not job-related; and show there is a specific alternative test with a less discriminatory effect. New Haven never did parts two and three, they argue, and therefore should have promoted the top scorers.

Why did New Haven throw out the test? Was it out of fear of losing votes from Rev. Kimber's followers? Or was it a valid fear of having used a possibly racist test? Was the test valid?

The day before their hearing at the Supreme Court in Washington, two of the New Haven 20 argue the test was valid, and it was hard. They studied during any spare time they had, they say, and deserve their promotions. Because there have been no official promotions since 2003, some firefighters who didn't score high enough to secure promotions or even pass the test are now "acting" lieutenants and captains through virtue of seniority.

These two firefighters, speaking anonymously before their court date, point to past problems with testing, and argue that this test was the most valid one the city's ever used.

New Haven has gotten into legal trouble in the past over promotion practices. Under city charter, New Haven must promote from the top three highest scores. But the city had a practice of rounding off scores to create ties which gave them a significantly larger pool of people to choose from.

Multiple lawsuits were filed in the 1990s and early 2000s by firefighters and police who were passed over for promotion, claiming the city chose who to promote based on politics, race or nepotism instead of merit. Those lawsuits resulted in judges chastising the city for not following its own promotion rules. In 2001, one judge said the city's practices amounted to "blatant lawlessness."

The New Haven 20 say their case is a continuation of New Haven's practice of flouting civil service rules.

Talking about the case, these two firefighters quickly get animated and just as quickly they censor themselves. They've been ordered to stay quiet by their attorney, and some of the 20 have only spoken briefly with Fox News and CNN.

Both worry about what will happen if the Supreme Court sides with the city: They'll be out a promotion, which means a better job and roughly an extra $10,000 a year. But they also worry what kind of message it would send to other firefighters. What motivation will firefighters have to take the next promotional exam knowing all their hard work can come to naught if the right racial balance isn't seen in the test results?

At the Supreme Court hearing last week, each side had half an hour to argue their case and answer questions from the justices. In between the two sides a representative from the Obama administration was granted 10 minutes to argue its views. A decision in favor of the city would grant municipalities leeway in deciding when to take race into account in hiring practices. A decision in favor of the firefighters could leave municipalities open to more discrimination lawsuits if they consider race.

The Obama administration has a third viewpoint and sent Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler to the court to argue on behalf of the government. Kneedler says employers need "considerable flexibility" when it comes to avoiding discrimination. But, he also says, an employer needs to prove their concerns about discrimination are reasonable before they throw out a test.

In other words, preserving the law is important, but only if a city uses it for the correct reasons.

Whether New Haven's concerns about discrimination were valid is unknown, and Kneedler suggests the nine justices send the case back to the lower courts to decide that question. Kneedler says the New Haven 20 weren't given a chance to prove their claim that the city scuttled the test because of racial politics.

The justices spent as much time addressing the details of the New Haven case as they did on how their ruling could affect various other situations. Justice Stephen Breyer posed several hypotheticals to the firefighters' attorney, Greg Coleman.

In one example, a university decides the tenure requirements for promotion to professor leads to too few women professors. As an experiment, the university decides against using tenure as a requirement. Is that OK with you?, Breyer asks Coleman. Yes, he says, "because you're not taking away tenure from anybody. You're just saying we want to change the tenure process. ... The analogy to your analogy," says Coleman, "is that if we have a series of people who go through the tenure process that exists, and it turns out, you know, that we don't like the results and therefore we want to change it."

Breyer tries another: "In Texas, for example, they take the top 10 percent of all high school graduates and put them in the university. Now suppose they just decided, you know what we want to do? The top five percent. And, of course, then there are people who would have in fact gotten into the university and now they don't. Can Texas do that?"

Coleman pauses. "Well, you've chosen a very controversial subject," he says.

Breyer: "I know that. I want to test out just what it is about the case."

Texas could do that, under Coleman's view of the law, as long as the decision isn't made on the basis of race, but instead based on merit.

Breyer suggests that Texas couldn't look at its class that year and say "you know, there are not enough minorities. I think we'll go to 15 percent this year."

No, says Coleman, Texas couldn't.

Breyer returns to his tenure example: "What the school couldn't do is say, looking over at the present tenured faculty and those who were just ready for promotion and who in all probability will be, we're going to go to the non-tenured system this year."

Coleman: "I also agree with that."

Breyer: "They couldn't do that. And again, you say the ordinary employer across America who announces [an application] deadline for getting in applications cannot, once it sees those applications, say, 'You know, there are not enough minorities. I want to extend the deadline.'"

Coleman: "That's also correct, Justice Breyer."

Breyer: "All right. And therefore this is a very far reaching decision."

To say the least. Linda Greenhouse, who covered the Supreme Court for The New York Times for 30 years and is now teaching journalism at Yale, suspects the justices are leaning toward the New Haven 20, and says a ruling in their favor could erode civil rights law.

"This would put cities all over the country in a very awkward position," she says in an interview following the court date. "They'd be violating one branch of Title VII to avoid violating another branch of it."

Chief Justice John Roberts taps his gavel on the desk and court abruptly ends. The firefighters, attorneys, audience and media spill onto the court's marble steps. Famed NPR reporter and longtime court observer Nina Totenberg tells a print reporter, "I think the firefighters won, but I can't tell you how or why."

Outside, firefighters pose for photographs in front of the court's columns while their wives gush over how handsome the men look in uniform. Reporters jostle for space on the sidewalk, and lawyers line up for face time with the cameras.

Only firefighter Frank Ricci speaks briefly with the media: "The only thing that I'll say is that we're all happy to have our day in court. If you work hard and you study and you apply yourself well at your job, you can succeed in America."

Hanging around the TV cameras, I run into three black firefighters from Arlington, Va., who watched the proceedings. Capt. Thurston McClain starts talking about the New Haven promotional exam makeup: 60 percent written, 40 percent oral. "Man, that test is ancient," he says, explaining that his department uses a three-part test: 10 percent written, plus oral and a simulation exam. "We've been through written tests, and they found out it doesn't work well. We're not just fighting fires anymore, there's a lot more things you need to know. These other tests give you a well-rounded view of who knows what."

"We need diversity," chimes in his co-worker, Battalion Chief John Morehead. "It's important to know the culture of the people you're protecting." Morehead says that recently his city has become more supportive of black firefighters: "They realize how it affects the city. Diversity in the department makes for better community relationships and better trust, less tension."

All that could be endangered if the court sides with the New Haven 20, he says.

Douglass Wardlaw, a New Haven firefighter, shakes hands with the 20 —his colleagues — and clasps their shoulders as they pass by.

I ask him what he thinks and he looks at me like I'm stupid: "I'm a black firefighter," he says. "Look, if all the playing fields were level, it would be one thing, but racism still rears its ugly head, and we need these laws. If today's decision overturns that ..." he trails off and concludes, "Fire knows no color."