Posted on 05/26/2009 2:03:38 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's first pick for the Supreme Court, got some real-world experience fighting discrimination before she ever heard a case as a judge.
As a law student at Yale, she turned down a high-profile job with the powerful Washington law firm Shaw, Pittman, Potts and Trowbridge to protest questions during the recruitment process about her Hispanic heritage, according to a report in The Washington Post from 1978. The daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, Judge Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic to serve on the high court if confirmed.
A student-faculty tribunal found that during a recruitment dinner one of the Washington firm's lawyers discriminated against her by asking whether she had been "culturally deprived" by her heritage.
Mr. Obama introduced Judge Sotomayor as a candidate with the "common touch" and "experience" he is seeking for the nation's highest court but did not mention the 1978 incident. Ms. Sotomayor has served on the U.S Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit since 1998.
According to the contemporary news account of the tribunal's findings, a Shaw, Pittman lawyer asked Judge Sotomayor: "'Do law firms do a disservice by hiring minority students who the firms know do not have the necessary credentials and will then fire in three to four years? Would [you] have been admitted to the law school if [you] were not a Puerto Rican? [Were you] culturally deprived?"
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com:80 ...
Ahh, poor liberal baby. Although, I have to wonder how rough it was for her, considering she came out of an Ivy League school, rather than a state school, like most true Americans.
What about people who face discrimination for being fat, ugly, and/or genetically predisposed to sexual deviance? When will their time come?
“The daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants...”
Puerto Ricans are not immigrants.
First ... our task in the present proceeding is not to determine whether the provision at issue is wise or sound as a matter of policy or whether we, as individuals, believe it should be a part of the California Constitution. Regardless of our views as individuals on this question of policy, we recognize as judges and as a court our responsibility to confine our consideration to a determination of the constitutional validity and legal effect of the measure in question. It bears emphasis in this regard that our role is limited to interpreting and applying the principles and rules embodied in the California Constitution, setting aside our own personal beliefs and values.Her own experience might serve her well when hearing oral arguments and spotting bovine excrement, but it would and should add nothing to her deliberative process in her current or proposed positions.
I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you!
My parents did not have much education but they sacrificed to help me through college. I am in agreement with Sotomayor
on this one. If someone asked me if I was culturally deprived I would have told them to go pound sand and walked out. We could not afford trips to the opera and concerts but we traveled
a lot and my dad used 1/2 of his vacation time to be with me at scout camp for the week. I could go on but I think many of us on this site have worked hard to succeed and had parents to help us. I did not hang out with Buffy, Muffy, and Biff at the club.
So, she wants to attain a power position to implement HER racism and discrimination...
‘What about people who face discrimination for being fat, ugly, and/or genetically predisposed to sexual deviance?’
Hey, leave my ex-wife out of this! :-)
Everybody faces discrimination of one kind or another.
But in her case, it qualifies her to sit on the Supreme Court.
Is this a great country, or what?
What goofy principle is this? Conservatives should prefer the private over the public sector except when it comes to college, when going to a state school is the sign of being a true American? I attended an Ivy undergrad (Harvard) and a flagship state school (U of I at Urbana) grad, and my impression was that the Harvard undergrads were smarter *on average*. Is saying that some colleges have smarter grads than others *on average* or that brains matter "elitist"?
Some idiots (which includes the leftist media) believe PR is a foreign country. Guess since my parents moved with me to Tennessee, that makes mine “New York immigrants.”
She has a compelling life story, but still ends up as a racist kook who doesn’t understand the Law, when all is said and done.
You know, Rush Limbaugh has a really compelling life’s story ....
She says she’s “an ordinary person given extraordinary experiences and opportunities”: I would rather have the reverse when it comes to the Supreme Court.
Ginsberg will move on soon.
Then who?
How discriminated against could she have been since she must have been offered the job in order to turn it down?
Sounds like a somewhat awkward statement some partner made in trying to keep up with the tricky conversation she would have had the upper hand in.
Not at all, what I’m saying is that there is a perceived notion regarding Ivy League grads that they are somehow “superior”.
Besides, from what I paid to attend a state school, it did feel like paying for a private institution.
My father once had a black lab assistant who was very nice and competent in her job. She almost broke down and cried once when he gave her a sincere and well-deserved compliment because she said, up to that point, everyone had assumed she was an affirmative action hire and nobody assumed she had a brain.
It’s be nice to see some GoP’Nads show up for the comfirmation hearing. seeing as how we don’t have aRlen anymore.. (boo hoo)
Hmmm. When I graduated from college, I was discriminated against in job opportunities because I was a white male. Does this mean I can lobby the Kenyan Mussolini for a job too?
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