Sotomayor's Misguided "Brown vs. Education" Response

Bob Parks: Black & Right ^ | 5/31/09 | Bob Parks

[bocopar]

In response to the uproar over her now infamous quote from the Spring 2002 issue of Berkeley La Raza Law Journal Lecture: ‘A Latina Judge’s Voice’...

Justice (Sandra Day) O'Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases. I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line since Professor Resnik attributes that line to Supreme Court Justice Coyle. I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor Martha Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

As Republicans have seized on reminding people what would have happened to one of them had they said the same thing in reverse, Judge Sotomayor's response is just short of lame and embarrassingly beyond historical ignorance. Not the best combination for someone awaiting Supreme Court nomination hearings.

[hosepipe]

But O’Connor was a RINO.. or democrat masked as a conservative..

[Bahbah]

I am not so sure Justice O'Connor is the author of that line....

Well, I just saw a video clip of her saying that very thing. Maybe someone else said it first, but if she was not the author, she clearly believed it.

[Dilbert San Diego]

What “richness of experience” does a Latina woman have? Is that a stupid question? She has her life experiences, as we all do. She’s liberal, otherwise Obama would not have appointed her. Is she just a reverse racist?

Maybe some will call me a bigot, but she’s among the elites of our society. She is not a typical Latina, in her professional career, or in the fact that she doesn’t have children or a husband, as far as I know. Yes she is of Puerto Rican descent, but in the overall scheme of things, how important is that?

[Cheetahcat]

Problem here is evident; this Judge was not held to the same high standards a White Man or Woman made to achieve.I would guess this is what is giving her the distorted view of what is right and wrong.

[Kent C]

See my replies 19 and 22 here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2261725/posts?page=19#19

[Bahbah]

Excellent analysis. And I agree. O’Connor and Alito are saying something quite different from Judge Sonia.

[Kent C]

Excellent analysis. And I agree. O’Connor and Alito are saying something quite different from Judge Sonia.

Thanks and you're exactly right. The difference is between fair and blind justice - iow 'all are equal before the law' and prejudice where 'none are equal before the law'. And it puts to shame Adam's statement that "we are a gov't of laws not men".

[longtermmemmory]

Sotomayor will be the first judge to wear a dunce cap on the bench.

[Titus-Maximus]

There is this underlying myth that minorities who are politically liberal are somehow ‘more real’ than the rest of us. They must live harder, have more penetrating experiences and know life much fuller than anyone from the lame white majority. Whites cannot attain this level of reality no matter how hard they study and observe, they will never know what those life experiences are like that make you a perfect judge, so they don’t even attempt it and scientology can’t even help. Due to this lack of real living all whites should be removed from places of judgment and be replaced by Latinas, and make that any Latina who grew up in a Bronx housing project.