Conservatives Launch Attack on Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor's nomination is on the books, and now the dirt begins. The Right is not going to go down with dignity (though it is important to note that they will go down on this one). The beginning of the fight began with everyone from Rush to the National Review. The NR is relying on an article in the National Journal by Stuart Taylor which resurrected an article (which was really a speech turned into an article for the Berkeley La Raza Law Review) which it claims describes the real Sotomayor.

Here is the article serving as the basis for the attack:

http://heinonline.org/HOL/PDF?handle=hein.journals/berklarlj13&collection=usjournals&id=93&print=8&sectioncount=1&ext=.pdf

Here is what NR said today:

NATIONAL JOURNAL’S STUART TAYLOR HAS A GREAT COLUMN ON SECOND CIRCUIT JUDGE, AND SUPREME COURT CANDIDATE, SONIA SOTOMAYOR’S SPEECH TURNED LAW-REVIEW ARTICLE IN WHICH SHE EXPRESSES HER “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” WHEN EACH IS ACTING AS A JUDGE “IN DECIDING CASES.” (SOTOMAYOR, “A LATINA JUDGE’S VOICE,” 13 BERKELEY LA RAZA L.J. 87 (2002).)

AS TAYLOR PUTS IT:

SO ACCUSTOMED HAVE WE BECOME TO IDENTITY POLITICS THAT IT BARELY CAUSES A RIPPLE WHEN A HIGHLY TOUTED SUPREME COURT CANDIDATE, WHO SITS ON THE FEDERAL APPEALS COURT IN NEW YORK, HAS SERIOUSLY SUGGESTED THAT LATINA WOMEN LIKE HER MAKE BETTER JUDGES THAN WHITE MALES.ANY PROMINENT WHITE MALE WOULD BE INSTANTLY AND PROPERLY BANISHED FROM POLITE SOCIETY AS A RACIST AND A SEXIST FOR MAKING AN ANALOGOUS CLAIM OF ETHNIC AND GENDER SUPERIORITY OR INFERIORITY.

The language between the "" is accurate as portrayed by the NR. A complete account of what Stuart Taylor had to say can be found at: http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/or_20090523_2724.php

What the reference (or Taylor's article for that matter) does not represent is that she was conveying a dialogue with retired 2nd circuit judge Miriam Cederbaum about the role that race and gender have in deciding race and gender cases. Cederbaum noted that the seminal race and gender cases were decided by white males, while Sotomayor notes that most of them were argued by the likes of Thurgood Marshall, Constance Baker Motley, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg (touche'). The reference in NR makes it look like she was referring to all cases, and she is not. The editing of her speech from which the article came could have been a little tighter, or the students screwed up the editing of the article. In either case, the points offered by Taylor and the NR are without merit.

How the NR and Taylor could get this so wrong is beyond me (not really). A casual glance at the article will reveal the point she was making. For Taylor to characterize the statement as meaning that "her basic proposition seems to be that white males (with some exceptions, she noted) are inferior to all other groups in the qualities that make for a good jurist" is unfair, inaccurate, and an attempt to conjure up antipathy from the right. This thing has gone viral, and I can expect my conservative bartender to refer to Taylor's and the NR's take on that article word for word, as will Fox.

I'll have a beer.