As stated here earlier the Senate confirmation process is entirely political theatre. And Judge Sotomayor presents her arguments in just that manner. Criticize society, the court, the country for being prejudiced and then to look impartial feature a few references which compliment the same people whom you hold in contempt and seek to nullify.
Announce your bias and explain you will try to control it yet will use it if the case before the court requires. How convenient it is to admit you advocate for what is important to you but will not allow it to influence your decisions on the bench unless you decide to allow it to influence your decisions on the bench as you believe the case requires.
I further accept that our experiences as women and people of color affect our decisions. The aspiration to impartiality is just that–it’s an aspiration because it denies the fact that we are by our experiences making different choices than others. Not all women or people of color, in all or some circumstances or indeed in any particular case or circumstance but enough people of color in enough cases, will make a difference in the process of judging.
Let us not forget that wise men like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Justice Cardozo voted on cases which upheld both sex and race discrimination in our society. Until 1972, no Supreme Court case ever upheld the claim of a woman in a gender discrimination case. I, like Professor Carter, believe that we should not be so myopic as to believe that others of different experiences or backgrounds are incapable of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group. Many are so capable. As Judge Cedarbaum pointed out to me, nine white men on the Supreme Court in the past have done so on many occasions and on many issues including Brown.
However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Other simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.
Each day on the bench I learn something new about the judicial process and about being a professional Latina woman in a world that sometimes looks at me with suspicion. I am reminded each day that I render decisions that affect people concretely and that I owe them constant and complete vigilance in checking my assumptions, presumptions and perspectives and ensuring that to the extent that my limited abilities and capabilities permit me, that I reevaluate them and change as circumstances and cases before me requires. I can and do aspire to be greater than the sum total of my experiences but I accept my limitations. I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies and prejudices are appropriate.
And of course the advocacy role of Sotomayor is not a new trend. Her stance on promoting her own cultural heritage is evident in the item below as well as her statements that special interest groups supporting her Latina views are necessary to promote her personal views along those lines. For someone who claims to want equality in America her track record suggests she only wants that equality for the groups she selects. And that is Sotomayor’s version of justice for all.
Anti-Latino discrimination at Princeton
By Sonia Sotomayor
May 10, 1974
On April 18, 1974, the Puerto Rican and Chicano students of Princeton filed a complaint with HEW charging the university with an institutional pattern of discrimination.
The facts of the complaint are these: 1) There is not one Puerto Rican or Chicano administrator or faculty member in the university; 2) There are two million Puerto Ricans in the United States and two and a half million more on the island itself. Yet there were only 66 Puerto Rican applicants this year, and only 31 Puerto Rican students on campus. While there are 12 million Chicanos in the United States, there were only 111 Chicano applicants and 27 students on campus this year; 3) Not one permanent course in this university now deals in any notable detail with the Puerto Rican or Chicano cultures.
That there is any question this nominee is not fit for service on the bench defies the evidence. Of course the latest news on her hearings suggests her attempt to characterize herself as something she is not.
Sotomayor Pledges ‘Fidelity to the Law’
Hearings Begin: Nominee for High Court Faces Senate Panel
By Robert Barnes, Amy Goldstein and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor said yesterday that a simple “fidelity to the law” is at the heart of her judicial philosophy, as her confirmation hearings began with Senate Republicans delivering a surprisingly strong critique of her fairness and President Obama’s reliance on ephemeral qualities of life experience and “empathy” in nominating her.
Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com
This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 12:51 pm and is filed under wordpress, disclosure, ethics, oversight, United States, Law, Justice, Opinion, Supreme Court.
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