Breaking: Sonia Sotomayor Can Be Objective, Too
Posted by: Jessica Wakeman
Filed in:
news
11:00AM, Wednesday July 15th 2009
Supreme Court justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor is in the middle her confirmation hearings. Each day, we reach new heights of irritation that her impartiality is called into question.
Sen. Jeff Sessions of Senate Judiciary Committee summed up the tone the best on “Face The Nation” on Sunday, when he said, “Every judge must be committed every day to not let their personal politics, their ethnic background, their biases, sympathies influence the nature of their decision-making process.” The implicit question-behind-the-questions seem to be, should Sotomayor not be confirmed because she may judge like a Latina and a woman, instead of like white males who comprise the majority of the Supreme Court?
While, obviously, Sessions is correct that judges must be fair and impartial, it seems to us like Sotomayor’s ethnic background is only a big to do right now because it’s something other than white—as if white people don’t have biases, too.
All this flipping out about possible biases surely have their root Sotomayor “wise Latina woman” quote. Speaking at Berkeley in 2001, Sotomayor said that she believes ethnicity and gender “may and will make a difference in our judging,” continuing:
This quote is getting twisted around in the press and the public consciousness to focus less on what she is saying about “the richness of her experience” and focus more on what she may or may not have been implying about the white-male-judgments-as-standard. And that reminds me of a post I wrote last month, after The New York Times actually wrote an article about whether female judges decide, as they put it, “differently”:“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.”
“Session’s attempts to grill Sotomayor on this question of impartiality reveals the obvious ignorance that when white men hold partial beliefs they are natural and objective, whereas when women of color do, they are unable to effectively do the job. It seems the question of whether Sotomayor experience adds value, verse whether it impacts her ability to be objective in her rulings is at the core of the questioning.”Have you been watching Sotomayor confirmation hearings? What do you think about the questioning she is undergoing? Do you think it’s fair for the senators to be emphasizing whether the judge is impartial and unbiased?
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MissChaotic
wrote on July 15 2009 @ 11:08 am: [report]
Seriously, they are ridiculous for that statement. Honestly, there should be a range of ethnicities and other social differences (we need at least 2 members of the LGBT community) representing us in the Supreme court. A white man is not going to be able to always understand a black woman, who is not going to always be able to understand a transgendered Latino. Once people realize that we are all different, and we all need to have our differences accommodated, then only will true equality among all people exist.
I think Obama is doing a hell of a job trying to do this through diversifying his staff.
legal_eagle
wrote on July 15 2009 @ 11:18 am: [report]
the law is supposed to be bias-free “equal justice under the law” This has nothing to do with her race or gender per se, it’s about whether she can impartially interpret the letter of the law. The Firefighter Case just recently overturned by the USSC, which came from Sotomayor’s circuit and which she was in the majority, exemplifies the senators’ concerns that she is not impartial in interpreting the law. Don;t give me the right to an abortion because you’re a woman and you think that’s how it should be. Give it to me because it’s fundamental right protected by the Constitution.
B1ll
wrote on July 15 2009 @ 01:07 pm: [report]
Sorry folks, but the key word here is “POLITICS”. Both Liberals and Conservatives are always fearful that when the President and the majority of the Senate are of the opposing view they will “pack the court” with jurists that will use the authority of the Supreme Court to “create laws” they don’t agree with. Therefore, they look for any statement, ruling, speech, etc. to try and paint them as radical and unfit to be confirmed. They then sit down as a group and figure out how to keep emphasizing that point even before the confirmation process begins.
When one party haas 60 or more Senate seats, guaranteeing confirmation, the attack is mild. When neither party has 60 Senate seats, the attacks are stronger in order to keep their own party in line so they can threaten a filibuster if the jurist really frightens them.
It’s a shame that such a competent jurist has to face something like this (can’t think of any Appeals Court Judge who has not had a ruling reversed by the Supreme Court) but it would be the same regardless of Her Honor’s sex, national back-ground, color, or religion. Look it up.