by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
What is and what should be the story around the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the high court? Is the main story a celebration of how humble origins and hard work won out? Should we spend all our time and energy refuting the racism of Republican talking heads, and none examining her record, and how she arrived at the door of the Supreme Court? Is this a good time to explore what a just and democratic society must demand from its courts --- more nonwhite faces in high places? More rights for corporations? Or more justice for people? And if this isn't a good time, is that time ever coming?
Sonia Sotomayor: She's No Clarence Thomas, But No Thurgood Marshall Either
by BAR managing editor Bruce A. Dixon
The bubble of false reality corporate media blow around the nomination of Sonia Maria Sotomayor begins with the racist rants of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and a host of Republican senators and talking heads. It encompasses a torrent of righteous air and ink denouncing the racists, along with an inspiring story of humble origins, hard work and determination to succeed. It feeds the ongoing narrative of America's ultimate triumph over old fashioned racism by allowing highly qualified and carefully vetted minorities to join its ruling elite. And it includes the view of places like Business Week, which designate the nominee “centrist” and a “moderate,” a view that corporate media revealingly agree is nonpolitical,” which means that the prerogatives of America's business elite are not now and never will be up for discussion.
Absent from the conversation around the Sotomayor nomination are all but the most cursory review of her legal career before being appointed a federal judge by George Bush --- a mere twelve years of legal experience, five as a prosecutor for the D.A.'s office in Manhattan, and another seven as partner at the international law firm of Pavia & Harcourt. Summaries of her decisions are hard to find. Although much is made of the fact that she will be only the fifth judge not a white man to sit on the high court, few detailed comparisons are made between her legal career and those of Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. Finally there are no attempts to discuss the unique, and not always positive role that the US Supreme Court plays or ought to play in the life of the country.
All these concerns are outside the bubble, not only for corporate media, but for the blogs and commentators who allow corporate media to draw the limits of their universe.
Sotomayor's first job out of law school was as a prosecutor in the Manhattan D.A.'s office. Her time as a prosecutor roughly coincides with the end of the first decade of New York's infamous Rockerfeller drug laws, a time when our nation's historically discriminatory law enforcement apparatus began locking up larger percentages of black and Latinos than anywhere else on the planet. From there she moved on to a spot as associate, then partner at the international law firm of Pavia & Harcourt, and international law firm offering “...a full range of legal services to companies, individuals, and Italian and French governmental organizations and agencies... who do business in the United States as well as American clients who do business in the U.S. and abroad.”
Among Pavia & Harcourt's areas of special focus are the enforcement of intellectual property laws, and obtaining writs of confiscation and seizure of goods believed to be in violation of such laws. In this selection from Ed Shanahan's IP Law & Business he assembles quotes from the Wall Street Journal, the National Journal and the New York Times that paint a picture of Sotomayor's passionate involvement on behalf of her corporate clients:
“...as the Wall Street Journal Washington Wire blog further explains in this colorful post
, the “peak” of her career at the firm “came in representing Fendi in trademark actions against makers and sellers of counterfeit handbags and other items, according to George Pavia, the firm’s managing partner.”
"Sotomayor, the WSJ reports, didn’t just fight for her clients in court.
“Firm founder George Pavia told the paper that when the firm would get a tip about suspect cargo, investigators “would trace where the shipment had gone—for example, to a warehouse or a store. Then, working with police, the firm would seek a warrant to view and attach the items. Often, the lawyers learned through experience, such visits would prompt angry responses from the merchants involved. But Sotomayor, who became a high-profile defender of the brand, seemed to enjoy going along. ‘On several occasions,’ Pavia said, ‘she went in wearing a Kevlar vest and seized the goods.’
“(In this profile
of Sotomayor, The New York Times adds to the judge’s legend: “One incident that figures largely in firm lore was a seizure in Chinatown, where the counterfeiters ran away, and Ms. Sotomayor got on a motorcycle and gave chase.”)
“The Journal also reports that Sotomayor played an integral role in what might be termed an IP publicity stunt aimed at calling attention to the then-growing problem of high-fashion knockoffs:
“With Sotomayor in charge, the firm decided in 1986 to stage a bonfire —to be known as the ‘Fendi Burn’—in the parking lot of the Tavern on the Green restaurant. There was a catch, however: the New York Fire Department refused to permit it.
“So the firm decided on the next best thing, crushing the items in garbage trucks, in an event that came to be known as the ‘Fendi Crush.’
“‘In the presence of the press…we threw masses and masses of handbags, shoes, and other items into these garbage trucks,’ Pavia said. ‘It was the pinnacle of our achievement, and Sonia was the principal doer.’”
No place on earth has more lawyers than the U.S., and in the late 80s, early 90s, New York City had more lawyers than anywhere in the country. This is how a young former prosecutor gets noticed and considered for the federal bench. Maybe Democratic senators and the White House of George H.W. Bush took note of her on their own. Maybe lobbyists and campaign contributors affiliated with her clients recommended her as someone who would look out for their interests. Take your pick. Either way, Bush put her on the federal bench in 1992.
For the twelve years she was a prosecutor and in private practice, right up until her appointment to the U.S. District Court, Sotomayor spent evenings, weekends and personal time, as an active board member of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Committee. During those years PRLDEF publicly opposed police brutality, the death penalty, felony disenfranchisement, and discrimination in housing and employment. It filed lawsuits to protect the voting rights of minorities in New York and the human rights of migrant workers. PRLDEF even sued an official of the Reagan administration for defamation over his public statement that most Puerto Ricans were on food stamps. No reports we have seen say that she personally filed those suits or that she ever appeared in court on behalf of litigants in discrimination and other lawsuits. As a board member she was reportedly involved in the planning and overall supervision of these activities.
After his graduation from Yale Law School in 1974, Clarence Thomas attached himself directly to the Republican party as a black man squarely against equal rights under the law. He became assistant attorney general in Missouri in 1974, chief counsel for Senator Sam Brownback in 1978, and in 1982, chairman of the Office of Economic Opportunity under Ronald Reagan, where he publicly defied the Congress by sitting on thousands of age and race discrimination complaints till the statute of limitations ran out on them. After only fourteen years as an attorney, Thomas had earned his appointment to the federal bench in 1989, and shortly after that to the Supreme Court.
The only other nonwhite person to serve on the US Supreme Court in two centuries has been Thurgood Marshall. Marshall' graduated Howard University law school in 1933, where he was mentored by Charles Hamilton Houston. Houston was the architect of a decades-long crusade to use the courts to overthrow America's Jim Crow segregation laws. After less than a year of private practice, Marshall joined Houston at the NAACP, where he spent the next quarter century crisscrossing the country, sometimes at the risk of his own life, defending African Americans in court who were falsely accused of murder and rape. Marshall took their cases, along with those of black people who directly challenged Jim Crow laws all the way to the Supreme Court where he won a phenomenal 29 out of 32 cases, including the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that separate school systems for blacks and whites were unconstitutional.
After 28 years of legal practice, far longer than either Thomas or Sotomayor, Marshall was named to the US Court of Appeals in 1961, US Solicitor General in 1965, and in 1967 was nominated to the Supreme Court by Lyndon Baines Johnson. Before donning the black robe Marshall had already fundamentally changed the American legal landscape. He had directly represented the poor and disenfranchised in the courts of dozens of states, raised money and public support for their legal defense. By the 1950s, Marshall was known around the country as “Mr. Civil Rights.” He is said to have taken a dim view of civil disobedience and many of the tactics of the Freedom Movement in the 1950s and 60s, but generally refrained from publicly voicing those sentiments, and defended some of them in court.
The comparative pre-judicial careers of these three seem to indicate that the speedy road to the federal bench is to be a useful right wing political operative like Thomas or a zealous advocate of multinational business, like Sotomayor. Defending the poor and changing history seems to be a longer and much less certain way to get a federal judgeship.
Sonia Sotomayor is no Clarence Thomas, to be sure. The PRLDEF did great work during the years she served on its board, but she can hardly claim sole credit for it. In any case, PRLDEF wasn't her full time job, and certainly not what got her on the federal bench. She is no Thurgood Marshall either, not by a long shot. There are still lawyers who devote most of their practice to defending the poor and disenfranchised, and an even larger number who file suits against giant corporations on behalf of ordinary people. No matter their legal brilliance, those attorneys rarely get judicial appointments. Why? No Supreme Court Justice since Marshall has represented a defendant in a criminal case, let alone a death penalty case. Why? No Supreme Court Justices sued wealthy and powerful corporations on behalf of ordinary working and poor people either. Why?
Why should representing poor people as defendants in a court of law, or suing wealthy corporations on behalf of the ordinary people whose rights these powerful and immortal institutions trample upon every day rule a judgeship out of any lawyer's future? Was that the founding fathers' intent? More importantly, should it be ours?
A frank discussion of what a democratic society should expect from its court system is also long overdue. For the last generation, the courts have squatted squarely on the necks of working class Americans, relentlessly affirming the unearned privileges of a wealthy corporate elite over the rest of us, often in ways no governor, president or legislature would dare attempt. To name just a few instances, the courts have ruled that equal funding of public schools between wealthy and poor neighborhoods cannot be accomplished, even when state constitutions require it. Judges have affirmed that the First Amendment gives corporations the right to lie to and deceive the public for commercial gain, that patent laws allow US corporations to claim exclusive rights to crops grown by farmers for dozens of centuries in various parts of the world. The Supreme Court recently ruled that money, in the form of campaign contributions, is free speech, setting major roadblocks in the path of campaign finance reform.
We need to take note of the historic significance of the first Latina to be nominated to the Supreme Court. Like the embrace of a black president by most of the nation's ruling elite, it does signify a departure from a kind of old fashioned nineteenth and twentieth century racism, at least insofar as the admittance of carefully vetted and well-qualified minorities to that elite goes. But the advancement of a few is not necessarily the advancement of democracy, or of the many.
The easy out for progressives around the Sotomayor nomination is to waste all their time and oxygen debating Republicans, ridiculing and refuting their racism. While this is important, it mustn't be allowed to take all the air from the room. If we really want more than a change in the color of the faces at the top of American society, we'll have to spend a lot more energy evaluating their corporate connections of our judges on every level, and determining who they and our courts really serve.
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Sotomayor was an adjunct
Sotomayor was an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law from 1998 to 2007.[197] There she taught trial and appellate advocacy as well as a federal appellate court seminar.
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strong candidate
Sotomayor's nomination hardly comes as a surprise. I think she's one of the strongest candidates Obama could have selected, albeit controversial. She's certain to have an impact on many issues, including small business employment law
Judge Sotomayor is not
Judge Sotomayor is not responsible for Obama's previous Cabinet selections, nor should she be judged by the standards of Thurgood Marshall, or any other Supreme Court jurist. holidays in portugal
Why should representing poor
Why should representing poor people as defendants in a court of law, or suing wealthy corporations on behalf of the ordinary people whose rights these powerful and immortal institutions trample upon every day rule a judgeship out of any lawyer's future?
i think shes doing a really
i think shes doing a really good job . . . driver update
really she has done done
really she has done done really good job...thanks for the post.
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In May 2009, President Barack
In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retired Justice David Souter. disneyland paris cheap
i think she is doing a better
i think she is doing a better job than justice David
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I am not excited about
I am not excited about sotomayor or any appointment to the supreme court. Some of the decisions recently even by the so called liberals on the court confirms their hyprocracy when it comes to real justice for African people. The court just recently denied a new trial for Mumia Adul Jamal, despite overwheming evidence of Jury malfeasance.
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Sonia Maria Sotomayor
Sotomayor has received honorary law degrees from Lehman College (1999), Princeton University (2001), Brooklyn Law School (2001), Pace University School of Law (2003),Hofstra University (2006), and Northeastern University School of Law (2007)
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We must bring together the
We must bring together the legacies of those “those who picked cotton and those that cut sugar cane.” However, with all due respect, this will not be accomplished by promoting anti-Latino sentiments in the mainstream press.
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this woman has been doing
this woman has been doing such a good job, im a fan now. . Business Lists
You state “No reports
You state “No reports we have seen say that she personally filed those suits or that she ever appeared in court on behalf of litigants in discrimination and other lawsuits… she can hardly claim sole credit for it.
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By the 1950s, Marshall was
By the 1950s, Marshall was known around the country as “Mr. Civil Rights.” He is said to have taken a dim view of civil disobedience and many of the tactics of the Freedom Movement in the 1950s and 60s, but generally refrained from publicly voicing those sentiments, and defended some of them in court.
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(I am not Puerto Rican, nor
(I am not Puerto Rican, nor African-
American; am an older Jewish woman. I have had the
luxury of living in integrated Mitchell-Lama rental for over 40 years.)
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Diversity
I may be off here but to me it's great to see greater diversity in the Supreme Court. My confidence in Obama inclines me to believe he's picked the right person for the job. Px90 Workout
Re:
Well i think that the last generation, the courts have squatted squarely on the necks of working class Americans, relentlessly affirming the unearned privileges of a wealthy corporate and joining dual diagnosis treatment elite over the rest of us, often in ways no governor, president or legislature would dare attempt
It encompasses a torrent of
It encompasses a torrent of righteous air and ink denouncing the racists, along with an inspiring story of humble origins, hard work and determination to succeed.
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What's the point
This administration is so far out of whack with reality, what's the point who they pick. Things are just going to spiral out of control as if it has not happened already.
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On the Second Circuit,
On the Second Circuit, Sotomayor heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases and wrote about 380 opinions. Sotomayor has taught at the New York University School of Law and Columbia Law School.
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United States
In my opinion, this is a great step in the history of United States.
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The bubble of false reality
The bubble of false reality corporate media blow around the nomination of Sonia Maria Sotomayor begins with the racist rants of Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and a host of Republican senators and talking heads.
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Finally there are no attempts
Finally there are no attempts to discuss the unique, and not always positive role that the US Supreme Court plays or ought to play in the life of the country.
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Re:
In my opinion absent from the conversation around the Sotomayor nomination are all but the most cursory review of her legal career before being appointed a federal judge by George Bush.
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But Sotomayor, who became a
But Sotomayor, who became a high-profile defender of the brand, seemed to enjoy going along. ‘On several occasions,’ Pavia said, ‘she went in wearing a Kevlar vest and seized the goods.’
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For the last generation, the
For the last generation, the courts have squatted squarely on the necks of working class Americans, relentlessly affirming the unearned privileges of a wealthy corporate elite over the rest of us, often in ways no governor, president or legislature would dare attempt.
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And it is immoral, radically
And it is immoral, radically anti-woman positions like these which make the “pro-life” misnomer appropriated by the anti-abortion movement so infuriating.
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The notion that appellate
The notion that appellate court decisions are to be interpreted by the "feelings" of the judge is a direct affront of the basic premise of our judicial system that is supposed to apply the law without personal emotion. If she is confirmed, then we need to take the blindfold off Lady Justice.
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Mike Huckabee was ahead of
Mike Huckabee was ahead of the pack today in releasing a statement criticizing President Obama's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. There was only one problem: he got his target's name wrong.
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For the last generation, the
For the last generation, the courts have squatted squarely on the necks of working class Americans, relentlessly affirming the unearned privileges of a wealthy corporate elite over the rest of us, often in ways no governor, president or legislature would dare attempt.
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A great step in the history
A great step in the history of United States. By doing this, he has given a message to the world. This implies that his country is a racist one.
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A nice move by Barack Obama.
A nice move by Barack Obama. His attitude towards America is very nice. Very well done.
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Impressive post. This is one
Impressive post. This is one of the reason for the selection of Sotomayer by the President of United States to announce the world that his country is not a racsit country.
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Odd choice
The only reason Obama selected her was to show to the world that the United States is not a racist country.
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Yes
Yes, I agree with you. Some only reason can be match if Obama is not racist county. I hope the reason is great choise.
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We will see
Although I am not to crazy about sotomayor being the pick, we will see if this was a good pick or just another political one.
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What a nightmare!
When is this nightmare going to end? First, it was Obama's stealth candidacy which would be revealed to us as soon as he entered the "white" house. Anyone out there who still has doubts about Obama's politics of reaction and his indebtedness to those who appointed him before he was "voted" into office?. By the way, he just threw Sotomayor under the bus for making a truthful statement about what would be her different worldview from the rest of the current crop of establishment jurists. Any appointment Obama makes to any office deserves scrutiny and a background check! Failure to do so is tantamount to joining the chorus that sings his praises everytime he farts! We all know that the POTUS selects jurists who share his view of the world, especially of the policies and politics he has been elected to pursue and practice on behalf of the ruling elites.
Sotomayor is no friend of the little people!. Thurgood Marshall was!. She will be joining a congregation of her peers who are cut from the same cloth as Obama, Thomas, Steele, (make your pick) and the many fake progressives who are quick to make false accusations about BAR's unfairness to the fascists and turncoats favored by the ruling elite on whose behalf they labor!. This blog is not anti-Latina!. Never was! BAR has a well-deserved reputation for calling a spade a spade without fear or favour. The intimidatory and disingenuous accusations can never change this reality. Like Obama, Sotomayor will reveal her true colors once in office and believe you me, we will once again repeat the same mantra; "We told you so"...
You got it right the first
You got it right the first time Mr. Dixon.
And the below statement eloquently and unequivically wraps most if not all of the nuts pertaining to the complex philosophical implications inherent in the rise of once so-called underprivilaged minorities to elite status in a cosy little shell. It is the supreme, acient Madison Avenue hoax with the recent (once again) "Historical" examples substituting the Cadillac or the 7th Avenue showroom Furs and/or Tiffany delights for a Human being, whom we're certain we can identify with beyond any unreasonable doubts because; Uhhh,, well they look like us. And perhaps they stubbed their toe once or twice in the course of growing up in America, like so many other Millions.And by virtue of their being so loved by the ruling classes and the courts that protect them; well then, they are so much better than we disgruntled common folk.
“We need to take note of the historic significance of the first Latina to be nominated to the Supreme Court. Like the embrace of a black president by most of the nation's ruling elite, it does signify a departure from a kind of old fashioned nineteenth and twentieth century racism, at least insofar as the admittance of carefully vetted and well-qualified minorities to that elite goes. But the advancement of a few is not necessarily the advancement of democracy, or of the many.
Also, I think that your juxtaposing she and C. Thomas with T.Marshall is really what riles the middle minders.Because as you astutely point out; it is exactly his many decades of in the the field, on the doorstep defense and representation of the opressed that forged and earned him his appointment; not by brown nosing with corporate elitist or relying on the covert exploitation and subversion that often accoompany's or becomes the result of afirmative action.
Keep on Trukin' with the clean facts and Democratically relevant opinions and let the Ruefull goofballs cry racism and anti semetism and whatever else inorder to perpetuate the denial of hard won truths that inspite of the Baker's good intentions, keep cropping up like pits in a plum pie.
Attacking Judge Sotomayor is The Wrong Agenda...
"All these concerns are outside the bubble, not only for corporate media, but for the blogs and commentators who allow corporate media to draw the limits of their universe.
Sotomayor's first job out of law school was as a prosecutor in the Manhattan D.A.'s office. Her time as a prosecutor roughly coincides with the end of the first decade of New York's infamous Rockerfeller drug laws, a time when our nation's historically discriminatory law enforcement apparatus began locking up larger percentages of black and Latinos than anywhere else on the planet."
Mr. Dixon, after reading the afore-posted paragraph, I had to ask myself, is this man kidding??? You are blaming, through association, the Judge for the sins of the most draconian and sinister drug laws ever enacted though they were enacted a decade before she ever got out of law school???? Whoa! Now I've got to wonder about what YOUR agenda is in doing that.
Is it that you are upset that Obama chose a Latina rather than another Black person to sit on the court? It seems that is a thought of some, though not great numbers, of African Americans. While I empathize with such sentiments because of his prior appointments(1 African American to his cabinet), I cannot, and do not hate on this particular appointment. I think it's right on the money. and right on time. Judge Sotomayor is not responsible for Obama's previous Cabinet selections, nor should she be judged by the standards of Thurgood Marshall, or any other Supreme Court jurist. She is, like another poster stated, her own woman, and should be allowed to carve out her own legacy. I think she will, as a strong-willed NuyoRican woman, do just that.
Finally, brother Bruce, as African Americans and Latinos, we should not even be entertaining the thought of wasting our energy and "oxygen" with nihilistic arguments and cat fights over how the crumbs of federal appointments are distributed. You are too brilliant a writer and thinker to be engaging in this kind of tearing away at the alliances people of color have painstakingly built with one another. Without sounding too trite, brother, we've got to be more discreet about the opponents we choose to fight.
Peace!
Isaiah
so for you, all questions are illegitimate, huh?
All I did was compare her career to those of Thurgood Marshall and Clarance Thomas. You have to twist your lips a long ways to turn that into an attack on Sotomayor because she is a Latina. You must know that accusation makes not the least bit of sense, and is in no way related to anything I actually wrote. I dare you to find someplace where I attacked the lady because she is a Latina. You can't find it cause it ain't there.
I did note that her first job out of law school was as a prosecutor in the Manhattan DA's office, a great place to get noticed by people who can help your career along while you do whatever the DA's office in Manhattan was doing at the time --- and we all know what that was. I never said she was responsible for the Rockerfeller Drug Laws. Like Mr. Howard Jordan, you are arguing with some imaginary friend of yours, not me.
Your state ment that she should not be compared to Thurgood is just plain ridiculous. You are saying that we have no right to mathc their performance up against our needs. No, Isaiah, we are not obligated to take whatever is given us and like it. That's just plain silly.
SYMBOLISM DOESN'T SOLVE ANYTHING
It takes time for many people to realize that they were wrong. There are a lot of distractions in American politics including the manufactured conflict within our one party duopoly. Racial and ethnic pride are just more weapons used by the elite to produce their desired result. Some folks have fallen into the trap of thinking that Sotomayor is the only latina qualified to be a Supreme Court justice. Are there any more latinas qualified to be on the court? If so, then these same one-track minders should be demanding that Booker T. Obama nominate a better latina for the court instead of attacking critics of this described "centrist" pick [another option is to actually defend "centrism" (non-religious right-wingism)].
"No one warned us" is no longer an excuse. Regular readers of BAR already knew this.
Sotomayor is her own woman
Sonia Maria Sotomayor-- She's neither Clarence Thomas nor Thurgood Marshall nor John Roberts nor Sandra Day O’Connor… Sotomayor is her own person. Her record reflects a thoughtful and complex woman who has carved out her own path. Your objections to her nomination reveal a short-sightedness and lack of sensitivity towards Latinos and women of her background who must of necessity find their own way.
Further, you fail to observe the historical significance and political importance of her nomination. Sotomayor will be the first Latino justice on the bench. Latinos are the largest minority group in the nation and their electoral strength must be reckoned with.
BAR Joins the Anti-Latino Sotomayor Agenda
I was saddened to witness Black Agenda Report (BAR) join the chorus of attacks on Latina justice Sonia Sotomayor. The article “Sonia Sotomayor: She's No Clarence Thomas, But No Thurgood Marshall Either” by managing editor Bruce A. Dixon trivializes the historic importance of the nomination of the first Latina to the court. It also does a disservice to the Puerto Rican/Latino legal and political experience in the United States. Let me address some the points you raise:
First you argue that corporate media is exaggerating the importance of the nomination and it just feeds the notion that anybody can overcome racism in America. As a New York born Puerto Rican/Latino the importance of the nomination to our community is unprecedented. Though racism is structural and will not be eliminated by one appointment Mr. Dixon the narrative is important.
A diabetic Latina, who lost her father when she was nine, raised in a housing project speaking a foreign language, attended Princeton, was editor a Yale Law Review, and served on the bench for seventeen years is a tribute and recognition of the important contributions Latin@s have made to this nation. The elevation of Thurgood Marshal to the Supreme Court during that historical period received the same sense of elation in the African-American community. It is as one Dominican legislator noted a “Jackie Robinson moment” for the 40 million Latinos in the U.S.
I am troubled that in your article you make only a passing reference to the racist comments characterizing Sotomayor as a “reverse racist,” an “affirmative action pick, a Hispanic chick, making fun of her unpronounceable last name, or cartoon depictions of her strung up like a piñata with a sombrero as an “easy out for progressives…to waste all their time and oxygen debating Republicans, ridiculing and refuting their racism.” The Latino community, as do all communities of color, have a responsibility and yes even an obligation to refute unfounded attacks that stereotype Justice Sotomayor and by extension promote racist stereotypes against Latinos.
Second, you rightly note Justice Sotomayor’s participation on the Board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the main civil rights law firm for Latinos in the Northeast, but demean that participation by referring to the fact that she was “reportedly involved.” You state “No reports we have seen say that she personally filed those suits or that she ever appeared in court on behalf of litigants in discrimination and other lawsuits… she can hardly claim sole credit for it. The best barometer of her participation in PRLDEF is the statement of Puerto Ricans themselves. As Cesar Perales, the PRLDEF President stated “Sonia displayed an increasing amount of leadership on the board.” Unless of course you are going to parrot the white right and argue that Perales is only saying that because he’s Puerto Rican. She served nobly. By the way as I am sure you know board members don’t bring the cases in civil rights organizations.
Mr. Dixon, Ms. Sotomayor was one of 20 Hispanics in her class at Princeton and co-chairwoman of the Puerto Rican organization Accion Puertorriqueno where she wrote a complaint accusing Princeton of discrimination and convinced the leaders of the Chicano Caucus to co-sign it and filed it with the federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare. As a result of her efforts, Princeton employed its first Hispanic administrator and invited a Puerto Rican professor to teach. (New York Times)
Perhaps you also missed her Yale Law Review article where she urged the granting of special rights for off-shore mineral rights for Puerto Rico not enjoyed by U.S. states, a historical corollary to the Vieques struggle of the Puerto Rican nation. (New York Times-David Gonzalez)
The one point you raise that I wholeheartedly agree with is your recognition of the contributions of Justice Thurgood Marshal and his transformation of the legal and racial landscape. As an attorney Justice Marshal remains one of my heroes and is the most important Supreme Court justice in U.S. history. But I consider the Sotomayor nomination as part of the historical continuum of the Latino contribution to the broader struggle for civil rights. It is the cross fertilization of our communities struggle for legal equality.
For example, in the case of Mendez v. Westminster, nine years before Brown vs. the Board of Education, on March 2, 1945, five Latino fathers (Gonzalo Mendez, Thomas Estrada, William Guzman, Frank Palomino, and Lorenzo Ramirez) challenged the practice of school segregation in the Ninth Federal District Court in Los Angeles. They claimed that their children, along with 5,000 other children of "Mexican and Latin descent", were victims of unconstitutional discrimination by being forced to attend separate "Mexican" schools in the Westminster, Garden Grove, Santa Ana, and El Modeno school districts of Orange County. Judge Paul J. McCormick ruled in favor of Mendez and his co-plaintiffs on February 18, 1946. As a result "separate but equal" ended in California schools and legally enforced separation of racial and national groups in the public education system. The governor of the state at this time was Earl Warren who later decided Brown.
I will not go on to cite all the contributions of Sotomayor this gifted jurist who is a legatee of our contributions to our struggle for social justice. Anybody with roots in our community understands this reality and can readily access her contributions through the internet or the written and oral histories of our community if they so desired.
Third, you maintain that her legal experience a “mere 12 years of legal experience” five as a prosecutor and 7 for and corporate firm is not significant. Perhaps in your analysis you failed to mention that Justice Sotomayor has more legal experience that any of the nominees on the present court had at the time. Even more troubling is your transparent attempts to cherry pick those cases that would present Justice Sotomayor in a negative pro-corporate light. As the New York Times indicated Justice Sotomayor would bring more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed in the court in the past 70 years. She participated in over 3000 panel decisions and authored roughly 400 opinions.
Fourth, you establish a false causal connection between the Rockefeller Drug laws and the development of the prison-industrial complex and Sotomayor. The article argues that during this period Sotomayor as a prosecutor did not inject herself in this scandalous imprisonment of people of color. I frankly don’t see the connection, did Sotomayor cause this situation? During this same historical period Puerto Ricans were held as Puerto Rican political prisoners in American prisons and many progressive lawyers did not speak out. Many jurist, liberals, and yes progressive of color have not played a leading role in denouncing the colonization of the Puerto Rican people (America’s last colony), despite the efforts of our people to bring our situation to the courts, yet I would not blame them for assisting the colonizers in their silence.
Five, you use a corporate news media source like the Wall Street Journal to argue that Justice Sotomayor not only represented corporate clients but rejoiced in that representation. You note that absent from the conversation is a cursory review of her (Sotomayor’s) legal career then proceed to offer your readers a less than cursory review of your own. I am particularly disturbed on how your article cherry picked the cases that pigeon hole the judge as pro-business- but conveniently ignored other decisions such as the 2006 case Merrill Lynch v. Dabit where she allowed class action lawsuits against Merrill Lynch or her ruling in favor of the players (workers) in the major league baseball strike. As many scholars have noted that her opinions do not necessarily put her in a pro- or anti-business camp. (New York Times-May 28)
It might also have been more intellectually honest to note the civil liberties decision by the Justice in the Ricci case allowing the city of New Haven to reject an exam that discriminated against African American and Latinos or her support against insensitive strip search of a 13 year old girl as intrusive. Or the case of United States v. Reimer where Judge Sotomayor wrote an opinion revoking the US citizenship for a man charged with working for the Nazis in World War II Poland, guarding concentration camps and helping empty the Jewish ghettos. And in Lin v. Gonzales where she ordered renewed consideration of the asylum claims of Chinese women who experienced or were threatened with forced birth control
I would add that while I would not reject the argument that many of the Justice’s experience have also been corporate friendly as is most of the court, I don’t believe we have any “revolutionaries” on the bench. Will the nomination of Sotomayor destroy the corporate state/capitalism or free people of color from the racial oppression in the United States- no -but yes it a significant step forward.
I am particularly troubled with the overall tenor of your article characterizing Justice Sotomayor as a “zealot advocate for multinational business” and an “easy out for progressives around the Sotomayor nomination is to waste all their time and oxygen debating Republicans, ridiculing and refuting their racism.” I am a progressive and I wholeheartedly reject your advice. Justice Sotomayor is reflective of the Puerto Rican/Latino experience in the United States. I would submit to you Mr. Dixon that recognizing a community’s leadership is about “respect” and I view your article as disrespectful and a cavalier dismissal of our historical experience.
As a New York born Puerto Rican I have spent a large part of my life organizing in the Latino community and struggling to build bridges between Latinos and African Americans. From the struggles against police brutality, to the Jackson campaign in 1984 and 1988, to support for the election of Mayor Dinkins, to the endorsement of candidate Obama for the Presidency who received 67 percent of the Latino vote. It is in the interest of both African Americans and Latinos to continue to cement the historical alliance between our communities and against the white supremacy that has relegated both our communities to the bottom of the economic ladder.
“Sticking it” to our leaders and refusing to recognize the different levels of our “racialization” of our respective communities does not lend itself to that goal. It instead diminishes solidarity, weakens alliances, and deprives our communities of the benefits of sharing experiences.
As a regular reader of BAR I have enormous appreciation for the insight your publication has on issues of importance to all communities of color. I have read with interest your critiques of President Obama and embrace of Rosa Clemente’s candidacy as the first Afro-Puerto Rican Vice-Presidential candidate for the Green Party. That is why I was bitterly disappointed at your blind spot on the importance of the nomination of Sotomayor as “historical milestone.” The first African American President nominating the first Latina to the U.S. Supreme Court is reflective of a new Black-Brown paradigm in America where all contributions are fully recognized. We must bring together the legacies of those “those who picked cotton and those that cut sugar cane.” However, with all due respect, this will not be accomplished by promoting anti-Latino sentiments in the mainstream press.
Howard Jordan, host
The Jordan Journal
Show me an "anti-Latino agenda" at BAR? You can't.
Mr. Jordan makes so many misrepresentations of the content of the article above that I have to wonder first if he even read it, and second what the reason for what I can only call this --- dishonesty might be. It is simply dishonest to ascribe positions to a person --- me in this case --- and a publication --- this one --- that I have never taken, that Black Agenda Report has never taken. But that's what Mr. Jordan has done, starting with the title of his “reply.”
We are accused of joining an “anti-Latino agenda,” but he offers absolutely no proof that this is so. He repeats this pattern of false and baseless accusation all through his “reply”
In the first paragraph he says “...Dixon trivializes the historic importance of the nomination of the first Latino to the court...” Where exactly did that happen? If it happened in the article Mr. Jordan, an attorney and educator, accustomed to making rigorous arguments based on facts could certainly demonstrate this to us. But he does not. He can't cause it just ain't there. I trivialized nothing. This is what I did say in the next to last paragraph paragraph of the article:
“We need to take note of the historic significance of the first Latina to be nominated to the Supreme Court. Like the embrace of a black president by most of the nation's ruling elite, it does signify a departure from a kind of old fashioned nineteenth and twentieth century racism, at least insofar as the admittance of carefully vetted and well-qualified minorities to that elite goes. But the advancement of a few is not necessarily the advancement of democracy, or of the many.
No trivialization there, and Sotomayor is called “carefully vetted and well-qualified.” Jordan is replying not to BAR or to me, but to some imaginary friend. In the second paragraph he hurls another accusation at his invisible opponent.
“First you argue that corporate media is exaggerating the importance of the nomination and it just feeds the notion that anybody can overcome racism in America.... “
This is a jab at an invisible opponent because I didn't say corporate media is “exaggerating the importance of the nomination,” or anything close to it. It just never happened. Not content with one false claim per sentence, he next portrays me as opposing Sotomayor's nomination because “feeds the notion that anybody can overcome racism in America.” OK. But I never said that either. That argument is not in the article. It's only inside Mr. Jordan's head, and in Jordan's alleged “reply.”
But what the heck? Three baseless accusations, not counting the title, in less than a hundred words? Anybody can make a mistake. Or three. Right?
Well, maybe. But in the next paragraph, he does it again, trotting out a series of racist Republican caricatures and rants and juxtaposing them against an incomplete quote to make it seem as though I or BAR endorse, are responsible for are convergent with them.
I am troubled that in your article you make only a passing reference to the racist comments characterizing Sotomayor as a “reverse racist,” an “affirmative action pick, a Hispanic chick, making fun of her unpronounceable last name, or cartoon depictions of her strung up like a piñata with a sombrero as an “easy out for progressives…to waste all their time and oxygen debating Republicans, ridiculing and refuting their racism.” The Latino community, as do all communities of color, have a responsibility and yes even an obligation to refute unfounded attacks that stereotype Justice Sotomayor and by extension promote racist stereotypes against Latinos.
Here is the part he left out, the article's final paragraph
The easy out for progressives around the Sotomayor nomination is to waste all their time and oxygen debating Republicans, ridiculing and refuting their racism. While this is important, it mustn't be allowed to take all the air from the room. If we really want more than a change in the color of the faces at the top of American society, we'll have to spend a lot more energy evaluating their corporate connections of our judges on every level, and determining who they and our courts really serve.
Of course I never did and never would suggest racism should not be refuted. If I had, Mr, Jordan would be able to show us a quote to that effect. But he cannot, again because it ain't there. What I did say is that refuting the racists should be the beginning, not the end of the discussion, and that we ought to use the nomination of the first Latino to the high court as the opportunity to examine the roles of the high court in particular, the judiciary in general, the gaps between the judges and courts we are getting and the judiciary we deserve, and what we ought to demand from black and Latino members of the legal profession.
Coming ony a couple times a decade on the average, a Supreme Court nomination is a time when popular attention ought to be directed to these questions. If we won't talk about it now, when will we? That's a discussion Mr. Jordan obviously hopes to squelch with baseless accusations that BAR is part of an “anti-Latino agenda” and conflating my article with racist sombrero cartoons, right wiing magazine cover caricatures, and whatever.
According to Mr. Jordan, I “demeaned” Sotomayor's part time service on the board of PRLDEF, by comparing it with that of lawyers who make a full practice of representing the poor and oppressed like Thurgood Marshall. He accuses me of “cherry picking” cases to make Sotomayor look more corporate friendly than she actually is, and claims I concur with Republican claims that she is unqualified, even though I call her “carefully vetted and highly qualified”.
In fact, I called her PRLDEF activities “commendable.” I didn't cherry pick cases, because I didn't mention any of ther judicial cases; the article compares her career before the bench with those of Clarence Thomas and Thurgood Marshall.
In conclusion, the best face I can put on Jordan's “reply” is that it's a dialog with an imaginary friend of his. At worst, it's a string of false accusations and lies. BAR did not join any "anti-Latino agenda" and we did not "join the chorus of attacks" on Sotomayor. What I did, and what Margaret Kimberley also did was point out that the racist rants and the response to them which avoids any analysis of the corporate ties of the nominee and the role of the courts and judges in general is less than we all deserve.
Jordan has utterly failed to find any common ground between our criticisms of the nomination and the coverage of it and the racist mudslinging of Republicans. And if these are his best efforts, he never will.
If there's a way to keep the conversation going, ...
or is it beyond the point of discussion? I've heard
Howard Jordan's show fairly often on WBAI. I heard some
of last Friday's show (archived for 90 days) on WBAI
www.wbai.org Howard Jordan is a lawyer,teaching
journalism I think, with Ivy
League background also, who I think, also came out of the
housing projects of NYC. He called Sotomayor's
nomination "a Jackie Robinson moment" for the Puerto
Rican community. (I am not Puerto Rican, nor African-
American; am an older Jewish woman. I have had the
luxury of living in integrated Mitchell-Lama rental for over 40 years.)
(A short add about WBAI: power struggle ongoing.
Community radio station. There's a "gag rule" at the
station, and for the dissident side, see www.wbixradio.
org for videos of interviews with Rosa Clemente,
Omowale Clay and many others at meetings, rallies
in support of the "fired and the banned", as a result of
the power grab. )
sotomayor nomination
I am not excited about sotomayor or any appointment to the supreme court. Some of the decisions recently even by the so called liberals on the court confirms their hyprocracy when it comes to real justice for African people. The court just recently denied a new trial for Mumia Adul Jamal, despite overwheming evidence of Jury malfeasance. enough said
peace
Re
Well said hamadi. I am also shocked by the denial of the plea of Mumia Adul Jamal by the court. I wonder in which direction is democracy going.
John
I'm with you all the way MICHA P.
I say bunk her so-called humble upbringing and her race-she was selected by Obozo and that is enough to put me off her as it is. But you are oh so correct in my view-what difference does it make if the person is of color if they are practicioners of evil?
As I see/hear this charlatan acting as if he is king of the world on his latest entertainment trip-I can only think of the people here in America he has stomped on with contempt every which way he can.
I can only hope he will get tired of the slavish, unquestioning adulation and decide to quit the job.