race, gender, and the Supreme Court

Last week, President Obama nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. When asked what he is looking for in a Supreme Court Justice, Obama said that empathy and compassion are among the desirable qualities. He wanted someone who could relate to the average person and understand the lives of ordinary individuals. Sotomayor was raised by a single mother in the Bronx (her father died when she was 9), and she went on to attend Princeton and Yale before making her way to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. If confirmed, Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic (or second, depending on whether or not you count Cardozo's Portguese descent as Hispanic) and third woman to serve on the high court.

There are many different points of view regarding the role of judges and their decision making, and the terms judicial activism and judicial restraint get tossed around quite freely. However, judges are inherently political. In judicial decision making, there is no way around it and we are fooling ourselves if we truly believe that judges can be neutral arbiters.

Some have wondered what role race and gender have on Sotomayor's rulings and if they matter for the Supreme Court, including the Dean of the UCI Law School, Erwin Chemerinsky. Sotomayor herself has mentioned that her race and gender have shaped her experiences and views, and this statement is under attack by conservatives. Some have even gone so far as to brand her a racist, and wonder if she is committed to justice for all or justice for a few. Others argue that though Sotomayor is passionate about minority rights, it does not come out in her judicial rulings.

If Sotomayor's experience as a woman of color raised in a working class family shapes her views and her judicial rulings, then so be it. After all, has anyone stopped for a moment to consider that our political institutions, laws, judicial decisions, and public policies have been shaped by the experiences and views of rich white men? And that these institutions and laws operate in a way that simply allows this dominant class to maintain their political and economic power? This has gone relatively unquestioned in our society.

So now, rich white men get a little nervous and fear that the tables will be turned. They fear that Sotomayor's experiences as a woman of color will somehow disadvantage them, and suddenly this is unfair.