by Heath Cleaveland

Created on: May 28, 2009   Last Updated: July 15, 2009

Obama's pick for the open Supreme Court Justice slot, Sonia Sotomayor, presents an interesting case for the people of America to state their case regarding prejudice in America. A poster child for multiculturalism, Sotomayor has quickly appeared to be unassailable. Obama's popularity and her own background have made her dangerous to attack. We need to know nonetheless, does Sotomayor take as her agenda preserving the law of the Constitution or promoting interests of Latinos and other minorities?

In a speech to Latinos in the legal professsion in 2001, she declared that a Latino woman with her type of "rich" background would more often than not make better legal decisions than a white male. Speaking about the sentence alone, it is clearly racist. One does not say that one race is better than another for any reason. Remember when Jimmy the Greek was fired and vilified for saying that black atheletes are better than white? Or suppose Dick Cheney were to say that white Presidents make more informed political decisions than black, both because of their background?

The Republican spokespeople, Limbaugh and Gingrich notably, have brought up the speech as evidence of reverse racism. Gingrich later stated that racist is too strong a term and Limbaugh argues now that he would support her if she helped attack Roe vs. Wade. What has put them back on their haunches is a mystery because racist statements come from people who have racist ideas unless they misspeak. They may hide their racism under a superficial veneer of good behavior, but if they can believe an idea like Latino judges are better decision-makers than white, put it in a speech, and then find it expedient to assess it as a poor choice of words (with White House support), then we have a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Case in point: the firefighters in Connecticut. The white (and one latino) firefighters passed a test for promotion that the minorities all did poorly on. Sotomayor threw out the test, suggesting that the state devise a test less racially-biased. So the State won and the case went on to the Supreme Court where the verdict was in favor of the firefighters. Some say it should not be a strike against Sotomayor that the Supreme Court reversed the earlier decision. Clearly such speakers suggest that the case was heard in a vacuum and the fact that four of five Justices sided with Sotomayor is a choice of their hearts and not political expediency. The idea that there may be politics in Supreme Court

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