TheLoop21.com

By: Raechal Leone (Add to your loop)
Tue, 06/02/2009 - 00:00

Sonia Sotomayor isn't any more biased than other judges.

We would never think it's acceptable for someone to say a judge is too male or too white to make sound decisions in cases about women or minorities.

Why is it OK then to say, essentially, that Sonia Sotomayor, President Barack Obama's choice to become the next associate justice on the Supreme Court, may relate too well to Latinos and immigrant families to make rational, fair judgments?

Only four of the 110 Supreme Court justices in our nation's history have not been white males — Thurgood Marshall, Clarence Thomas, Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But we don't question the decisions of these Supreme Court justices — who couldn't have fully understood the circumstances of everyone in cases they ruled on, no more than Sotomayor will — not because they're evil or racist or anything else, but because they all had different life experiences and perspectives.

I understand many of the complaints about Sotomayor's nomination are simply political; you're supposed to deride the choice of the president from the other political party. Additions to the court are so important, though, that we have to look at the issue in a deeper way than the pundits and some government leaders. (Certainly more deeply than Rush Limbaugh, who hypocritically called Sotomayor racist.)

So, yes, Sotomayor has been more outspoken than some Supreme Court nominees have been in her points of view. Her time at Princeton University, where she complained to school officials and in the student newspaper about the lack of students and faculty members of color, has been well documented, and so is her time with organizations such as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.

But none of this means she's pre-determined to rule one way or the other. In fact, a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times proclaimed "little of that activist sentiment is revealed in the hundreds of cases Sotomayor has decided in her 11 years on the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, raising the question of which jurist will present herself if she is given the lifetime tenure and complete independence of a Supreme Court seat."

We can't know for sure about Sotomayor any more than we can about any other Supreme Court nominee before they've taken a seat on the bench.

However, L.A. Times journalists Peter Nicholas and James Oliphant cited a study by Washington lawyer Thomas Goldstein of 50 appeals cases involving race in which Sotomayor had been part of a three-judge panel making a decision. Goldstein told them he found Sotomayor agreed with the other two judges and decided to reject claims of discrimination in 45 of the 50 cases.

Besides, even if someone hasn't broadcasted their opinions as openly as Sotomayor, every judge and every person is influenced by their ideals and life experiences. They may not say, as Sotomayor did in a 2001 speech to university students, "our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging," but their personal history has colored their own decisions.

As The New York Times pointed out Sunday, during his confirmation hearings, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who was appointed by President George W. Bush, said himself his background affected his world view and therefore his judgments. "When a case comes before me involving, let's say, someone who is an immigrant — and we get an awful lot of immigration cases and naturalization cases — I can't help but think of my own ancestors because it wasn't that long ago when they were in that position."

And really, what's wrong with that? Why would we not want to have judges on the Supreme Court — which interprets the laws for all of us, not just men and not just white men — look a little more like the people whose lives they affect?

Raechal Leone is TheLoop21.com's senior editor. She writes the Inside The Loop blog.

Is President Obama's pick, Sonia Sotomayor, a good Supreme Court choice?

Yes, I'm glad she's a minority

No, she's too liberal

I'm not sure