By Emmanuel Konde
Few American Dreams and dreamers can compare with Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s. Hers’ is more of a journey than a dream, a life’s journey that began in the Bronx Housing Projects of New York to ultimately end at the Supreme Court of the United States of America in Washingtom, DC. This transformation in the life of Sotomayor epitomizes the change candidate Barack Obama had promised Americans during his campaign for the Office of President. The slogan was “Change We Can Believe In”—the kind of change possible only in America— that President Obama is now transforming from mere belief to reality.
Rather than celebrate this unraveling of an American story, some right-wingers who profess to be conservatives have taken to the airwaves and editorial pages of newspapers in their attempts to besmirch the stellar career of this exceptional American woman who happens to be a Latina. From high school through college and law school to her professional career, Sotomayor distinguished herself at every stage as few Americans of any extraction or hue of similar background can possibly have wrought. Even fewer with more privileged backgrounds can compare with Judge Sotomayor achievements.
Prior to her nomination to the Supreme Court a few days back, Judge Sonia Sotomayor paid her dues to the legal profession for more nearly three decades in various capacities. Perhaps a recasting of the story of this Beacon of hope to all of America’s children born without privileges would help sanitize the toxic waste unleashed on Judge Sotomayor by her conservative Republican critics. To achieve this goal I will here present her life as an outstanding judge, lawyer, and student in reverse chronological order.
- 1998-2009: In 1997, U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moniyhan recommended Judge Sotomayor to President Bill Clinton who nominated her to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on June 25, 1997. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on October 2 with a super majority and receivd her commission on October 7, 1998.
- 1992-1998: Upon the recommendation of the late Senator Moniyhan of New York, Sotomayor was nominated by President George H. W. Bush on November 27, 1991 to a seat on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and received her commission on August 12, 1992. She was the youngest judge in that court.
- 1984-1992: Sotomayor went into private law practice at the law firm of Pavia & Harcourt in New York City from 1984 to 1992.
- 1979-1984: After graduating from law school, Sotomayor began her legal career in 1979 working as an assistant District Attorney with the District Attorney’s Office of New York County.
- 1976-1979: She attended Yale Law and received the Juris Doctor degree in 1979, having served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and as a managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order.
- 1972-1976: Attended Princeton University on scholarship, graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and a co-recipient of the M. Taylor Pyne Prize—the highest honor Princeton awards an undergraduate.
- 1976: Sonia Sotomayor graduated as valedictorian of her class at Blessed Sacrament and at Cardinal Spellman High School in New York.
These are the uncommon accomplishments of Sonia Sotomayor, a 55 years old Latina born on June 25, 1954 in New York to Puerto Rican immigrants who moved to that city during the Second World War. Sotomayor’s mother served in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps during the war, and her father, a factory worker with a third grade education, died when she was only nine years old.
Commenting on her nomination to the Supreme Court, Jeffrey Toobin, a Supreme Court scholar and CNN analyst, observed that what is “so different about Sonia Sotomayor is that she has a lot of street-level experience with the criminal justice system. She was a prosecutor in New York City… a federal trial judge…in New York City. That’s something that none of the justices in the Supreme Court have done -- is had the experience with juries, with defendants, handling the traffic in a courtroom. But the thing that makes her such a formidable choice is that she also has the intellectual achievements and that -- that people expect in a Supreme Court justice -- the distinguished academic career and a decade on the federal court of appeals in New York, where she has a record that is pretty much unassailable.”
Obama wants to replace one woman, David Souter, with another, Sonia Sotomayor.
As a divorced (man-hater), barren woman (child-hater, mom-hater), Sonia Sotomayor lacks experience (being a mom) to make any ruling about the sanctity of life.
In short, Ms. Sotomayor is an immature female, never achieving fuller awareness about life.
No human who never had to be responsible for a child can know what life truly means. Thus such a human has no business judging others whatsoever.
What sad times for all Americans that the only qualifying factors for becoming a USSC justice include lacking a penis and speaking Spanish, the language of those who conquered her ancestors.
Posted by: John Truth | Sunday, 31 May 2009 at 06:47 PM
John fails to mention her long experience as a high court judge and an excellent record as a student at Princeton University and Yale Law School. In John "Truth's" view, any mother picked at random would be a better candidate than Judge Sotomayor.
Sorry, Obama is not going to select a right wing conservative Supreme Court Justice and will attempt to diversify the court. Next pick will be a black female and then you will really lose your mind.
Posted by: Ma Mary | Monday, 01 June 2009 at 04:51 AM