Last week Judge Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by President Barack Obama to the Supreme Court. Politico is not alone in interpreting the move as part of the Obama administration’s “relentless courtship” of women and Latinos who were key in securing his election. Sonia Sotomayor’s appointment to the Supreme Court would be historic. She would be the first Hispanic-American and only the third woman ever to reach this position.
Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, which she attended on a full scholarship, and was also an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She has had a successful career in the public and private practice of law, as a professor in New York University, a lecturer in Columbia and as a circuit judge. However, these credentials have been quickly downplayed by her critics who point at a 2001 speech she gave in Berkeley as proof of her inclination to engage in identity politics and reverse discrimination. Some have gone as far as to accuse her of being a racist. Often taken out of context, Sotomayor’s “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often that not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life” phrase has lately been characterized by the White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs as a blunder.
The daughter of Puerto Rican migrants, Sotomayor’s rise from an impoverished childhood in the Bronx to the Supreme Court would prove to be a true confirmation of the American dream. In addition to being a competent and intelligent lawyer, her perspective has been shaped by a life experience which has made her sensitive to the plights and struggles of a large segment of the American population. For this very reason—and not in spite of it—Sotomayor’s inclusion as a justice would be a valuable asset to the Supreme Court.
