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 President Barack Obama has nominated federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor, 54, to replace the retiring Justice David Souter. Having been born to Puerto Rican parents, she could be this country’s first Hispanic Supreme Court justice.
According to the president, Judge Sotomayor has “the respect of colleagues on the bench, the admiration of many lawyers who argue cases in her court and the adoration of her clerks, who look to her as a mentor.” He added that she has more experience than any of the current justices when they were nominated. She would be the second woman presently serving on the Supreme Court, and the third overall.
Sotomayor was born in Bronx, New York, and grew up in a housing project. Diagnosed with type I diabetes at the age of 8 and following the death of her father at the age of 9, she was supported by her mother who worked six days a week as a nurse and stressed the importance of getting an education both to her and her younger brother Juan (who is now a doctor). At a young age she realized that she wanted to attend law school and eventually become a judge. She attended Princeton University, then was awarded her J.D. from Yale Law School. After stints as a prosecuting attorney and then a lawyer in private practice, she rose to become a federal judge for the Southern District of New York in 1992, and was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit in 1998.
Her most visible decision was made in 1995, and some would argue that it saved Major League Baseball. Sotomayor ruled with Major League players over owners in a bitter strike that had led to the cancelation of the previous season’s World Series. Her decision that March was an injunction that prevented Major League Baseball from implementing a new collective bargaining agreement that would have allowed the owners to field teams of replacement players.
Another highly visible ruling during her days as an appellate judge might hurt her with conservatives. She sided with the city of New Haven, Connecticut, in a reverse discrimination case brought by a group of white firefighters. New Haven discontinued using the results of a promotions exam because too few minorities scored high enough. This case was appealed and, interestingly, is now before the Supreme Court.
Although described by colleagues as a “centrist,” Sotormayor has made different statements on her judicial philosophy at different times. On the one hand, at her Senate confirmation hearing she contended, “I don’t believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.”
But at a cultural diversity lecture at the University of California at Berkeley in 2001 she stated that, “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.” She added that, “Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”
Such remarks have prompted Wendy Long of the Judicial Confirmation Network, a conservative group, to declare her a “liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important than the law as written.”
As a counterpoint, however, in 2002 she ruled against an abortion rights group that had challenged a government policy prohibiting foreign organizations receiving U.S. federal funds from performing or supporting abortions. She argued that the federal government was free to choose the anti-abortion position when public funds were involved.
Obama has been under pressure to choose a woman to replace Souter. Hispanic groups have also been pressuring him to choose the nation’s first Hispanic justice. They have not been disappointed. Roberto Ramirez, president of the Puerto Rican Bar Association, stated that ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic factors are not the barriers to advancement that once were. Sotomayor “is the right nominee,” he said. She “is a woman who will make this country and the U.S. Supreme Court proud, so I’m not going to ask whether it was a long time coming. I’m just glad that it is here.”
Given a Senate controlled by Democrats, and barring something unexpected, Sotomayor should have little trouble winning confirmation. She has two previous Senate confirmations, and at one of those, seven Republicans voted in her favor. At the White House earlier today she told the media, “I strive never to forget the real world consequences of my decisions on individuals, businesses and government.”
Steven Yates earned his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1987. He is the author of one book, Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action (San Francisco: ICS Press, 1994) and numerous articles both in academic journals and elsewhere. He has taught philosophy at Clemson University, Auburn University, Wofford College, the University of South Carolina, Southern Wesleyan University--Columbia, and Midlands Technical College, and has held fellowships with or worked on projects with the Institute for Humane Studies, the Heritage Foundation, the Heartland Institute, and the Acton Institute for Religion and Liberty.
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