Post #22

Sonia Sotomayor now sits on the United States Supreme Court. She is a woman, a minority, and a judge. As soon as we all heard that a prominent "liberal" Justice was going to be retiring and stepping down, everyone was questioning whom Obama would nominate to fill a seat on the highest court of the land. Many people, including myself, were hoping for Latino/Latina representation on the Court and other just wanted a woman.

Then came the day when President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a nomination that didn’t really come out of left field seeing as she was amazingly qualified and had a great record.

However, as soon as the public and media saw a Latina Woman nominated for the Supreme Court, thoughts and opinions fueled by racism and sexism arose about her future performance as a Justice.

Many people questioned Sotomayor based on her race, the fact that she was Puerto Rican, Latina. People believed this would mean if a case involving illegal immigration were to be brought to the Supreme Court, she would be soft on immigrants seeing as her parents moved to the States from Puerto Rico before she was born.

While at Princeton, Sotomayor was a loud advocate for minorities, and some people were scared that this passion for minority justice would go too far.

In a Los Angeles Times article about Sotomayor, a former clerk to Justice Thomas said “It is perfectly appropriate for people to bring their life experience to their judging, but there's a difference between having that perspective and being able to put one thumb on the scale to benefit one group over another.”

None of the faculty at Yale Law School was Latino, one was black, and two were women. Sotomayor didn’t like this. And after becoming a judge in New York some time later, Sotomayor has also been quoted, as saying it was "shocking" that there were not more minority women on the federal bench.

It is apparent through her years as a federal judge, however, that her personal sentiments have not shown up in the hundreds and hundreds of cases she’s decided.

Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer with a Supreme Court specialty, said he had reviewed 50 appeals involving race in which Sotomayor participated. In 45 of those cases, a three-judge panel rejected the discrimination claim -- and Sotomayor never once dissented, he said (LA Times, 31 May 2009).