Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Judge Sotomayor and the “wise Latina” remark

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[S]eminal decisions in race and sex discrimination cases have come from Supreme Courts composed exclusively of white males. I agree that this is significant but I also choose to emphasize that the people who argued those cases before the Supreme Court which changed the legal landscape ultimately were largely people of color and women. I recall that Justice Thurgood Marshall, Judge Connie Baker Motley, the first black woman appointed to the federal bench, and others of the NAACP argued Brown v. Board of Education. Similarly, Justice Ginsburg, with other women attorneys, was instrumental in advocating and convincing the Court that equality of work required equality in terms and conditions of employment.

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice 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.

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.

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Comments

  1. Remember when he called Michelle Obama “Stokely Carmichael in designer dress” on Bill O’Reilly’s show?  That was in January, not long after he went on Scott Simon’s show on NPR and said “you can imagine” that Rezko and Blagojevich were going to testify against Obama.  But Juan didn’t say there was no evidence for this… he just went on NPR and blurted out wild speculation as if he were on drugs.  

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    p>Roger Ailes led the first successful use of the Southern Strategy to win the votes of whites by stoking fears of blacks, and now his employee Juan Williams, who made “Eyes on the Prize,” has unfairly impugned our first African-American President and First Lady and the first Latina nominee to SCOTUS.

  2. media outlets like CNN and NBC have repeated the right-wing talking point many time and hardly ever given the paragraph around those 32 words, much less the four paragraphs you cite.

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    p>This behavior by the likes of CNN, NPR, etc., to uncritically recite rightwing points at the expense of just a little more context needs to stop.

  3. Let’s hope that these (relatively) sensible voices eventually drown out the nonsense emanating from Limbaugh, Tancredo & Co.  Meanwhile, judge for yourself.

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    p>Actually, given that the likes of Limbaugh, Liddy, and many of the others seem intent on sabotaging the Republican Party for years to come, I say let it continue.

  4. If you listen to the full extent of what she said, it’s pretty much the opposite of what the Republicans are trying to pin her on.

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    p>Honestly, this is a sad day for the GOP, spewing this kind of venom and hatred. Thankfully, it’s coming mostly from the loonies, but to hear the comparisons, ugliness and bigotry coming forth on air from their spokespeople and agents, a la Limbaugh, it’s speaking volumes.

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    p>The ironic thing is she’s about as moderate a pick the Republicans could ever expect coming from a Democrat – she’s probably not going to be any more liberal than the person she’s replacing. They should be just about ecstatic, because Obama could have pushed through a significantly more liberal justice.

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    p>I won’t complain. Let them further kill their chances with women and latinos, two groups of the population that Republicans cannot win without getting at least 40-50% of their vote. Let them keep it up and soon we’ll be winning states like Texas, set to be plurality latino in about a decade.  

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