UPDATE: Bob Egelko of the San Francisco Chronicle covers the opposition to Browne in a Feb. 3, 2010, article and join us for a Feb. 11 briefing by Alliance for Justice on the Browne nomination.

A coalition of more than seventy civil rights, women’s rights, consumer, fair housing and legal organizations – including the Equal Justice Society – this week sent a letter to Congress urging the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (“HELP”) Committee to reject the nomination of Sharon Browne to the Board of Directors of the Legal Services Corporation (“LSC”).

“Sharon Browne’s nomination is highly troubling because she has spent her entire career advocating against the very constituencies the Legal Services Corporation serves, said Nan Aron, Alliance for Justice.   “After extensively reviewing her record, I have seen nothing to indicate that she is committed to supporting women, people of color, or the poor – the very people LSC was created to support.”

When creating the LSC, Congress established that members of the legal services board should be committed to the development of legal assistance for the poor and supportive of the principal that this population have access to adequate and effective legal services.

Eva Paterson of the Equal Justice Society indicated, “At a time when inadequate funding means that legal services turns away nearly half of those who seek its help, LSC needs leadership from those dedicated to its core mission:  serving society’s neediest.”

“Sharon Browne’s nomination defies the basic criteria that Congress established in identifying LSC board members,” continued Paterson.  “She would not contribute to making the LSC board representative of those who provide, use, and support legal services.  She is not committed to keeping politics out of the LSC’s work.  And, her track record reveals a long history of political efforts against the LSC’s basic mission of providing equal justice for the poor.”

“AFJ and the more than 70 organizations who have signed onto this letter urge Congress and the HELP committee to reject Browne’s nomination and ask that another nominee – with a personal and professional commitment to providing equal justice for the poor – be identified,” concluded Nan Aron.

“Continuing its assault on our civil rights laws, the five conservative ideologues on the Supreme Court today rejected long-standing law to weaken Title VII protections for traditional victims of discrimination,” said Aron.

Before the Court issued its ruling, People For the American Way Executive Vice President Marge Baker said that: “Opponents of Judge Sotomayor have gone to great lengths to use the ruling of her panel in Ricci v. DeStefano against her, and they will surely ramp up their efforts if the Supreme Court overturns the Second Circuit. But the simple fact is that the Supreme Court’s ruling, whatever it may be, will not reflect upon Sotomayor’s jurisprudence.

“Sotomayor and her panel colleagues were bound by longstanding precedent and federal law. They applied the law without regard to their personal views and unanimously affirmed the district court ruling. To do anything but would have been judicial activism.

“The full Second Circuit backed up the panel, which came as no surprise. Nearly ten years earlier a Second Circuit panel — consisting of three GOP nominees — reached the same conclusion in a similar case (Hayden v. County of Nassau).

“When a case virtually identical to Ricci came before the Sixth Circuit — Oakley v. Memphis — a panel rejected the plaintiffs’ claims and affirmed the district court ruling. Notably, they did so in an unpublished summary order, and one of the three judges was conservative Bush nominee Richard Allen Griffin.

“In other words, Sotomayor is anything but an outlier. She and the seven other federal judges who decided Ricci and Oakley at the district and circuit levels were unanimous in determining that precedent and federal law required the rejection of the suits.”

We are thrilled with this choice. Sonia Sotomayor will be a strong voice to uphold the Constitution and the law to provide equal justice and protect personal freedoms for everyone in America, regardless of wealth, status, or popularity.

President Obama has nominated a highly qualified candidate with a compelling personal story and outstanding educational credentials. Furthermore, the president is making history by nominating the first Latina to the Supreme Court. Judge Sotomayor has more federal judicial experience than any justice nominated to the Supreme Court in the past 100 years.

Judges make a huge difference in our lives.

Courts protect our air and water, hold corporations accountable, ensure equal opportunity and fair pay, and safeguard our personal freedoms.

This nomination shows that President Obama is appointing judges who understand that the role of the courts is to give everyone a chance to be heard, to stand up for their rights, and get justice.