Sotomayor: A Civil Rights Set-Back For Latinas (Neocon or Otherwise)

Neocon Latina Blog ^ | 5/26/09 | GoingBacktoCali

[GoingBacktoCali]

I do not know Judge Sotomayor. I've never met her in person, and I don't recall any legal opinions she's authored. By all accounts, she is a competent, albeit not particularly distinguished, jurist. In saner days, being undistinguished would in itself disqualify a candidate from consideration for the Supreme Court. Those days are long gone.

Yet it is not Sotomayor's unremarkable legal talent that makes her a poor choice, but rather her "race-conscious" and "gender-conscious" approach to the law. Sotomayor's predilection to view legal disputes through the prisms of race and gender is illustrated by three quotes published in today's New York Times.

Quote #1:

"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences," she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, "our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

This quote is objectionable, but not overwhelmingly so. One the one hand, it is true enough that all of us -- to a certain degree -- are influenced by our backgrounds. On the other hand, by asserting that her race and gender "will make a difference" in how she decides cases, Sotomayor seems to be suggesting that she is at least to an extent captive to her race and gender. In a sense, then, Sotomayor seems to be validating the bigots who would claim that women and racial minorities cannot do the same job as a white man. So when the next promising Hispanic female judge comes along, it may simply be understood that she too cannot be trusted to decide cases on their merits, but will instead inevitably be influenced by her race and gender. That is unfortunate.

[gov_bean_ counter]

In much the way Obie's election will set back the case for African-Americans in their pursuit of the highest office in the land.

[Yardstick]

That would be a great question: “So, Ms. Sotomayor, are you saying then that because you are a Hispanic female, you are unable to judge a case on its merits?”

[Free Vulcan]

Obama seems like a True Believer so much of the time that it seems like this pick is for real. But I wonder if it’s nothing but a feint for the real nominee.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Sort of like the problem the American Psychological Association had when they were pushing for more black psychologists because they were uniquely suited to care for black clients (although the APA was too ignorant to understand that they actually had a problem) - the implication was that blacks therapists wouldn’t be quite as effective with white patients, and of more concern, that white therapists would do better with white clients - since the pool of potential white clients is much larger than the number of blacks, their push really seemed to require more white therapists than blacks........

[Bhoy]

Good points.

[JillValentine]

That also reminds me of how liberals are always saying that only black teachers can properly teach black children, only black teachers can be good role models for them, only black teachers can truly get through to them, etc. Then the liberals turn around and support busing black students across town into white schools, taking them away from the black teachers they supposedly need so much.