Latinos Missing from NY Times Recollection of 2009 Passings
Our friend and ally Tom Saenz, President and General Counsel of MALDEF, has brought to our attention the issue addressed in the article that follows. After seeing the new Star Trek movie, he pointed out that there are apparently no Latinos in the future. There were no Latino characters on the starship Enterprise. The following article makes that point again.
“Dead Latinos” by José R. Sánchez (January 2, 2010)
When does one dead Hollywood actor trump another? When does one fierce dead organizer against social injustices trump another? In fact, when does a dead chimp responsible for a hideous attack catapult himself above the life of a dead Mexican anthropologist with over 150 books and articles filled with archaeological and cultural studies about Mayan civilization? For The New York Times the answer seems to be whenever the second option is a Latino.
Travis the chimp was one of the few fortunate deceased to get star billing in the New York Times 2009 annual issue devoted to the passing of important people. Travis, you may remember, was the Connecticut chimpanzee, raised by a woman in Stamford, who was killed after he mauled the face off of his caretaker’s friend. This annual Times compilation included twenty-three essays on this year’s deceased. Like in past years, not one single Latino made it onto this lamentable list of the departed, famous and not-so-famous.
Many Latinos died this year, arguably many of them having led interesting and notable lives. But they apparently were not interesting enough for The New York Times. This newspaper highlighted the death of Karl Malden but not Ricardo Montalbán. The latter was the debonair path-breaking Mexican movie and television star, best known for his roles in the Star Trek series and movie and his commercials for promoting the “soft, Corinthian leather” in Chrysler Motors car seats.
The Times also wrote about the death of Crystal Lee Sutton, a fierce labor organizer in the South. But it ignored the death of Esther Chavez, a Mexican accountant who was one of the first to discover a pattern of murders in the 1990s against Mexican women working in U.S.-owned factories in border cities. Chavez helped to draw public attention and government prosecution against men who kidnapped young Mexican women off the streets, and raped and killed them with impunity. Her advocacy led the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to rule that Mexico had violated the human rights of women.
The Times also wrote about Robert Rines, an MIT scientist who spent most of his life pursuing evidence to prove the existence of the Loch Ness Monster. It ignored Dennis deLeon, a former New York City human rights commissioner, who created the premiere Latino advocacy group against AIDS. A Mexican American, deLeon created the Latino Commission on AIDS in 1994 and made it into a very effective tool against the spread of AIDS in the Latino community.
Why should we care that the Times ignored so many of Latinos in death? Some say this slight is one more example of the invisibility Latinos experience in life in the U.S. Death, apparently, does not redeem the living. Some Latinos, like Montalbán and deLeon, did get obituaries in the Times’ daily paper at the time of their death.
These annual compilations are done for many, often valid, editorial reasons. Some of the people the Times chose to celebrate led unusual lives, enough to have books or movies done about them. The Times also specifically selected each author to write these obit articles. Some were Times writers while others came from outside the paper. Who they chose to write about sprung from their individual “passions, quirks and curiosities” as writers and editors. The Times, in that sense, did not attempt to provide a comprehensive listing. All of this, however, simply underscores an even more troubling reality for Latinos. It’s one thing to be invisible, to not be seen; it is quite another to be in plain sight and yet not spark much interest or curiosity from others.
Public recognition of the dead provides a rough indication of the difference that person made in life, how much they were able to change the way others thought, behaved, or felt. Rines, the scientist who spent a large part of his life chasing the Loch Ness monster never found her, at least not conclusively. He inspired others by his quixotic efforts, however. He pushed the limits of how much we know and how much faith is warranted in the myth of her existence.
Omitting Latinos from this kind of recognition carries a message — that Latino lives do not really matter and did not have an impact. Is this a legitimate conclusion? The Times also omitted any recognition of Canadians, Jamaicans, Muslims and many others. But they did include two African Americans, Naomi Sims the model, and Reverend Ike, the irrepressible minister who built a church based on greed and hope. They also included a Trinidadian, the chili restaurant owner Ben Ali. Are these choices the product of simple editorial decisions, the play of curiosity, or pure whimsy? Are these news sources simply responding to audiences who have little interest in Latinos?
Latinos, obviously, did make a difference in this world before they passed on. We don’t need the Times to tell us so. But do we need the Times to tell others? How much do other Americans know about Latinos, the “fastest growing minority group” in the country? The Times treatment of Latino deaths is symptomatic of a wider neglect of Latinos in the media. Most mainstream newspapers and magazines also systematically ignored Latino accomplishments in their end-of-year appraisals.
The Chicago Tribune’s list of notable deaths in 2009 contained two Latinos out of 104. This included Mercedes Sosa, the Grammy Award winning Argentinean singer, and Alex Arguello, the Nicaraguan boxer. If we wanted to be generous, we could give them a third in Gidget, the Taco Bell dog featured in their commercials. The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, listed about 120 notable deaths, only 3 of which were Latinos. This included Arguello, Montalbán and Ismael Valenzuela, the Mexican horse jockey. One last example is the Baltimore Sun. It listed only Montalbán, Rafael Antonio Caldera, the two-time Venezuelan president, as well as the baseball manager Preston Gomez, among the 134 notable deaths in 2009.
The wide reach of this neglect is probably driven by the current media structure. Most newspapers in the U.S. are part of a handful of media monopolies that share the same sources of information or rely on syndicated sources like the Associated Press. In this vein, the AP listed only Montalbán among the 91 notable deaths it chose to feature in 2009. Five or six media conglomerates control the majority of newspapers in the United States. Editorial decisions, thus, tend to accumulate and spread with this kind of centralization. Most of the end-of-year reviews of the deceased were simply replicated by each newspaper in the chain. Recent research confirms this disturbing reality.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Pew Hispanic Center reported recently that in one six-month sample period only “2.9% of the news content studied contained substantial references to Hispanics.” Most of that coverage was focused on the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Otherwise, the media attention focused on Latinos only in the context of discussing issues like immigration and the recession. Clearly, a population that is now almost 16 percent of the population deserves more widespread and direct media attention focused on Latino lives and accomplishments.
The complaint here is not just about recognition and publicity. It is, to a great extent, also about power. Nothing happens simply because any one group or person has taken action. The world does not function so linearly. The success of health care reform or the results of the 2008 elections have many contributors. A group that is either not seen or that draws little interest will find its contributions minimized or dismissed. But this is about power in an even more important way.
I believe that any success at influencing or changing how others think, behave or feel depends directly on our ability to offer something that others value. Those who attribute power to objects like money or weapons can’t easily explain why these things sometimes fail to deliver power. The rich don’t always get what they want and, historically, much poorer-equipped opponents have often defeated the largest and best-equipped armies. Vietnam for the U.S. and Afghanistan for the U.S.S.R. are the best examples of the latter. The “War against Terrorism” may, eventually, prove to be another.
Power is a transaction, an exchange between parties in which each side has input. This is true no matter the situation. A mugger can get me to turn over my valuables only because my health and life mean so much more to me than my watch and money. The key here is that the threat of assault gets victims to move only because I, like the vast majority of us, fear getting hurt or killed. When that is not the case, when I am reckless or suicidal, for instance, the mugger’s threat often falls flat. The mugger’s attempt to extract valuables from me then gets stalled, jeopardized, and, possibly, defeated. I may get killed but the mugger will have failed to influence my behavior.
I cannot teach my students or change the way they think unless they want knowledge or grades or something else from me. I cannot influence how an elected official decides policy issues unless I can provide the votes, money or information they need. The ability to influence becomes extremely difficult, however, if the others around me do not see me or have no interest in me when they do. The exclusion of Latinos from the list of notable deaths reflects a community whose life remains lived apart from the main cultural, economic, and political currents of this society.
Latinos lag behind other groups in voting rates, average age, high school graduation, college attendance, employment rates, corporate and professional employment, income, housing conditions, two parent families, and residential integration. These conditions not only produce deprivations and obstacles to individual mobility. They also produce a community that still lives, despite all the progress, largely apart from the rest of society. This life apart results in very limited opportunities for Latinos to develop power with and influence other sectors U.S. society.
The neglect of Latinos in death is, thus, a reflection not just of how much Latinos are neglected in life but also of how few opportunities they have for power while alive. The Times is, thus, justified to omit any Latinos from its annual “How They Lived” magazine compilation. After all, it would be hypocritical to pay attention in death to a group that they and society have mostly ignored, overlooked, dismissed, and brushed off in life.
José Ramon Sánchez is Associate Professor of Politics and Chair of Urban Studies at Long Island University – Brooklyn; he is also Chair of the Board of the National Institute for Latino Policy, Inc. He is the author of “Boricua Power: A Political History of Puerto Ricans in the U.S.” (2007) and co-author of “The Iraq Papers” (2010). He can be reached at jose.sanchez@liu.edu.
Sotomayor Confirmation: ‘Momentous Step Forward for the Court and Our Country’
The Senate confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor this afternoon, 68-31, making her the 111th Supreme Court Justice, only the third female Justice, and the first Latina to serve on our nation’s highest court.
As a prosecutor, litigator, and trial and appellate judge, Judge Sotomayor brings more federal judicial experience to the Supreme Court than any justice in 100 years, and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 70 years.
We applaud President Obama on his successful nomination and laud this momentous step forward for the Court and our country.
Share with us your thoughts about our newest Justice at ConfirmSotomayor.org.
Judge Sotomayor’s nomination and confirmation will be among our discussion topics at a Netroots Nation panel next week at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pa.
EJS is coordinating a session on “The Myth of Post-Racial America” on Thursday, August 13, from 9 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.
Panelists include Rinku Sen, President and Executive Director of the Applied Research Center (ARC); Rich Benjamin, Senior Fellow at DEMOS; Annabel Park, director/producer of the upcoming documentary film “9500 Liberty” and moderated by Keith Kamisugi, EJS Director of Communications.
Save the session date and info on Facebook.
Op-Ed: ‘Empathy is important in making judgments’
In an op-ed, “Empathy is important in making judgments,” published by the Oakland Tribune, EJS board member Prof. Margaret Russell, a law professor at Santa Clara University and Marilyn Edelstein, an English professor at the same institution, discuss the notion of empathy in the context of the Sotomayor confirmation hearings:
“Empathy for one party is always prejudice against another.”
Sen. Jeff Sessions, fervid critic of Judge Sonia Sotomayor and President Barack Obama, uttered these startling words in the first hour of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings for Sotomayor’s elevation to the U.S. Supreme Court.
As professors who strive to teach students that the understanding of texts and of life is deeply enriched by ethical principles of empathy, conscience and compassion, we were left aghast by the empathy-bashing on national television.
What is empathy, and why are Sessions and other conservative Senators saying such terrible things about it?
Empathy is commonly defined as the ability to imagine, identify with, and potentially share another’s experiences, perspectives and feelings. It is about process, rather than result, and about intellect as well as emotion.
Given that all of us are both shaped and limited by our lived experiences, how can we engage in effective dialogue, debate and analysis unless we try to comprehend how others think and feel?
Empathy is not a trendy or new-fangled invention of Obama, Sotomayor or even contemporary American culture.
Its rich intellectual tradition includes giants of Western political thought like John Stuart Mill, who argued in “On Liberty” that we must understand others’ points of view, right or wrong, to understand, clarify, and, if need be, correct our own positions.
The 19th century British poet Percy Shelley argued that a person, “to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively” and must “put himself [or herself] in the place of another and of many others.”
Simplistic equations of empathy with bias woefully misinterpret the nature of both concepts. Genuine empathy requires crossing boundaries of identity and circumstance to find common overarching truths.
Bias stems from the refusal to acknowledge that our world-view is in part limited by our own experiences. Education is one way to eliminate such bias and limitation, and empathy is another. In literature, law and life, the exercise of empathy enlarges our capacity to appreciate and understand the narratives and perspectives of others unlike ourselves.
For judges — especially those who serve on the highest court in the land — the quality of empathy can be an antidote to prejudice, rather than evidence of it. Diversity of backgrounds and life experiences among the nine members of the Supreme Court will increase the likelihood that doctrinally and ethically rigorous exchanges will occur.
The noted legal thinker and Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote, “The life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience. “… [L]aw cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics.”
Even before he nominated Judge Sotomayor, President Obama created controversy by stating that he considered “the quality of empathy, of understanding and identifying with people’s hopes and struggles as an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes.”
Yet, he was not advocating this so-called empathy standard as the sole or primary criterion for appointment of Supreme Court justices.
Clearly, serving on the highest court in the land requires an exceptional legal mind and record, but also the wisdom to know that empathy is a strength rather than a weakness.
Margaret Russell, an Oakland resident, is a professor of Constitutional Law at Santa Clara University, and board member of the Equal Justice Society and the ACLU. Marilyn Edelstein is an associate professor of English at Santa Clara University.
Editorial cartoon on Judge Sotomayor has subtext of lynching, stereotypes Latinos
The Oklahoman newspaper printed on Tuesday a racist, sexist and outright offensive “editorial” cartoon.
It depicts Judge Sotomayor strung up by a rope, likening itself to lynching images or a piñata, with President Barack Obama wearing a sombrero, holding a stick and asking a crowd of elephants (Republicans) “Now, who wants to be first?”
The cartoon is captioned “Fiesta time at the confirmation hearing.” See the cartoon here on our ConfirmSotomayor.org blog.
Bittersweet Week: Judge Sotomayor, Prop 8 Upheld, Ron Takaki Passes; Launching ConfirmSotomayor.org
We experienced last week several gut-wrenching and rejoiceful moments.
On Tuesday, May 26, President Barack Obama announced his historic nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. On the same morning, the California Supreme Court ruled against marriage equality by upholding Prop. 8. The following day brought news that a preeminent scholar on our nation’s diversity, UC Berkeley professor Ronald Takaki, passed away.
SUPREME COURT NOMINEE JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR
In nominating Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, President Obama fulfilled a promise to the American people to appoint judges who are well-qualified, grounded in the rule of law and the Constitution, fair-minded and committed to equal justice for all. Judge Sotomayor embodies all these traits.
In the course of a life that began in a housing project in the South Bronx and brought her to the pinnacle of her profession, Judge Sotomayor accumulated more experience on the federal bench than any incoming Supreme Court Justice in the past 100 years, touching nearly every aspect of our legal system.
But Judge Sotomayor’s ethnicity has proven too much of a temptation for the voices of hate and extremism, who instead of looking at her judicial record have launched a vocal rampage that has reached new heights of absurdity, including calling her a “reverse racist” and calling the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) “the Latino KKK without the hoods and nooses.”
Condemn these unacceptable attacks on Latinos and Judge Sotomayor now. Join NLCR and send a message to Chairman Michael Steele of the RNC, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asking them to denounce these statements and restore the nomination process for Judge Sotomayor to a more appropriate and civil discourse.
EJS has also launched a blog and Facebook page in support for Judge Sotomayor. Visit http://ConfirmSotomayor.org and join the Facebook page as a fan. The blog includes a page with information on how you can support Judge Sotomayor.
And if you’re in California, please support our Californians for Fair and Independent Judges coalition so that organizations and individuals here can work together to support Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation. Email Keith Kamisugi at kkamisugi@equaljusticesociety.org for information about joining the coalition.
CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT RULING ON PROP. 8
The California Supreme Court last Tuesday in a 6-1 vote upheld Prop. 8, the ballot measure discriminating against marriage by same-sex couples.
EJS is relieved the Court protected couples who married before November 5. The presence of thousands of married same-sex couples across California will show that marriage strengthens families and communities and threatens no one.
But by upholding Prop 8, the Court has diminished its legacy as a champion of equality. No minority group should have to defend its right to equality at the ballot. The Court’s decision jeopardizes every minority group in California.
As a racial justice organization, the Equal Justice Society opposes Prop. 8 – not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because EJS strongly believes in working with others to ensure that the rights of all are expanded, rather than diminished, in our society.
We cannot just pigeonhole Prop. 8 as a ‘gay’ issue. By rolling back the fundamental rights of one group, the Supreme Court’s decision on Prop. 8 casts a threat that now looms over the civil rights of all.
Since the vote on Prop 8, there has been a tidal wave of momentum in favor of full equality. Five states now embrace marriage equality for same-sex couples, and several more are on the brink. We believe that California voters will reverse this injustice at the ballot. California has been a leader in standing up for equality, and it will be again.
Banning same-sex couples from marriage is unfair. Same-sex couples have the same hopes, dreams and concerns for their families as everyone else. They should be allowed the dignity, recognition, and responsibility that come with marriage, just like everyone else.
The fight is not over. Join our friends at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (led by EJS board member Kate Kendall) to receive updates on next steps in this battle for justice.
PROF. RON TAKAKI PASSES AWAY
Ronald Takaki, professor emeritus of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and a preeminent scholar of U.S. race relations who taught the University of California’s first black history course, died at his home in Berkeley on Tuesday, May 26, at age 70. He had struggled for years with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune condition that attacks the central nervous system.
During his more than 40 years at UC Berkeley, Takaki established the nation’s first ethnic studies Ph.D. program as well as UC Berkeley’s American Cultures requirement for graduation, and advised President Clinton in 1997 on his major speech on race.
“Ron Takaki elevated and popularized the study of America’s multiracial past and present like no other scholar, and in doing so had an indelible impact on a generation of students and researchers across the nation and world,” said Don Nakanishi, director of and professor at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center and a longtime friend of Takaki’s.
Takaki’s 1989 book, “Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans,” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
A descendent of Japanese field workers in Hawai’i, Takaki was acutely attuned to the inequities in Hawai’i’s tough and ethnically divided plantation system.
In 1966, he was hired to teach UCLA’s first black history course in the wake of the explosive Watts riots. “I can still remember the smoke rising from Los Angeles and the sound of gunfire – it was a war zone,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle in that same interview.
When a student in the black history class asked him which revolutionary tools he could teach them, Takaki replied: “We’re going to study the history of the U.S. as it relates to African Americans. We’re going to strengthen our critical thinking skills and our writing skills. These can be revolutionary tools if we make them so.”
After five years at UCLA, Takaki returned in 1971 to UC Berkeley as the Department of Ethnic Studies’ first full-time teacher. He became wildly popular, filling auditoriums with hundreds of students hungry for perspectives on the struggles of America’s minority groups, and went on to win the campus’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1981.
Takaki is survived by his wife, Carol; his three children, Todd of El Cerrito, Calif., Troy of Los Angeles and Dana of Chester, Conn.; and several grandchildren.
Takaki has donated his research and published papers to the Ethnic Studies Library at UC Berkeley. His family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Takaki’s name to the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco. Plans for a campus memorial service are pending.
All of us at the Equal Justice Society mourn Prof. Takaki’s passing and we express our deepest condolences to Ron’s family and friends.
Join a Facebook page launched in tribute to Prof. Takaki.
Obama Nominates Sotomayor for Supreme Court
President Barack Obama today nominated Judge Sonia Sotomayor to succeed David Souter as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Obama said Sotomayor has more experience as a judge than any current member of the high court had when nominated, adding she has earned the “respect of colleagues on the bench, the admiration of many lawyers who argue cases in her court and the adoration of her clerks, who look to her as a mentor.”
She would be the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court.
The following is a backgrounder issued by the White House:
Sonia Sotomayor has served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since October 1998. She has been hailed as “one of the ablest federal judges currently sitting” for her thoughtful opinions,i and as “a role model of aspiration, discipline, commitment, intellectual prowess and integrity”ii for her ascent to the federal bench from an upbringing in a South Bronx housing project.
Her American story and three decade career in nearly every aspect of the law provide Judge Sotomayor with unique qualifications to be the next Supreme Court Justice. She is a distinguished graduate of two of America’s leading universities. She has been a big-city prosecutor and a corporate litigator. Before she was promoted to the Second Circuit by President Clinton, she was appointed to the District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H.W. Bush. She replaces Justice Souter as the only Justice with experience as a trial judge.
Judge Sotomayor served 11 years on the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, one of the most demanding circuits in the country, and has handed down decisions on a range of complex legal and constitutional issues. If confirmed, 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 for the Court in the past 70 years. Judge Richard C. Wesley, a George W. Bush appointee to the Second Circuit, said “Sonia is an outstanding colleague with a keen legal mind. She brings a wealth of knowledge and hard work to all her endeavors on our court. It is both a pleasure and an honor to serve with her.”
In addition to her distinguished judicial service, Judge Sotomayor is a Lecturer at Columbia University Law School and was also an adjunct professor at New York University Law School until 2007.
An American Story
Judge Sonia Sotomayor has lived the American dream. Born to a Puerto Rican family, she grew up in a public housing project in the South Bronx. Her parents moved to New York during World War II – her mother served in the Women’s Auxiliary Corps during the war. Her father, a factory worker with a third-grade education, died when Sotomayor was nine years old. Her mother, a nurse, then raised Sotomayor and her younger brother, Juan, now a physician in Syracuse. After her father’s death, Sotomayor turned to books for solace, and it was her new found love of Nancy Drew that inspired a love of reading and learning, a path that ultimately led her to the law.
Most importantly, at an early age, her mother instilled in Sotomayor and her brother a belief in the power of education. Driven by an indefatigable work ethic, and rising to the challenge of managing a diagnosis of juvenile diabetes, Sotomayor excelled in school. Sotomayor graduated as valedictorian of her class at Blessed Sacrament and at Cardinal Spellman High School in New York. She first heard about the Ivy League from her high school debate coach, Ken Moy, who attended Princeton University, and she soon followed in his footsteps after winning a scholarship.
At Princeton, she continued to excel, graduating summa cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa. She was a co-recipient of the M. Taylor Pyne Prize, the highest honor Princeton awards to an undergraduate. At Yale Law School, Judge Sotomayor served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and as managing editor of the Yale Studies in World Public Order. One of Sotomayor’s former Yale Law School classmates, Robert Klonoff (now Dean of Lewis & Clark Law School), remembers her intellectual toughness from law school: “She would stand up for herself and not be intimidated by anyone.” [Washington Post, 5/7/09]
A Champion of the Law
Over a distinguished career that spans three decades, Judge Sotomayor has worked at almost every level of our judicial system – yielding a depth of experience and a breadth of perspectives that will be invaluable – and is currently not represented — on our highest court. New York City District Attorney Morgenthau recently praised Sotomayor as an “able champion of the law” who would be “highly qualified for any position in which wisdom, intelligence, collegiality and good character could be assets.” [Wall Street Journal, 5/9/09]
A Fearless and Effective Prosecutor
Fresh out of Yale Law School, Judge Sotomayor became an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan in 1979, where she tried dozens of criminal cases over five years. Spending nearly every day in the court room, her prosecutorial work typically involved “street crimes,” such as murders and robberies, as well as child abuse, police misconduct, and fraud cases. Robert Morgenthau, the person who hired Judge Sotomayor, has described her as a “fearless and effective prosecutor.” [Wall Street Journal, 5/9/09] She was cocounsel in the “Tarzan Murderer” case, which convicted a murderer to 67 and ½ years to life in prison, and was sole counsel in a multiple-defendant case involving a Manhattan housing project shooting between rival family groups.
A Corporate Litigator
She entered private practice in 1984, becoming a partner in 1988 at the firm Pavia and Harcourt. She was a general civil litigator involved in all facets of commercial work including, real estate, employment, banking, contracts, and agency law. In addition, her practice had a significant concentration in intellectual property law, including trademark, copyright and unfair competition issues. Her typical clients were significant corporations doing international business. The managing partner who hired her, George Pavia, remembers being instantly impressed with the young Sonia Sotomayor when he hired her in 1984, noting that “she was just ideal for us in terms of her background and training.” [Washington Post, May 7, 2009]
A Sharp and Fearless Trial Judge
Her judicial service began in October 1992 with her appointment to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H.W. Bush. Still in her 30s, she was the youngest member of the court. From 1992 to 1998, she presided over roughly 450 cases. As a trial judge, she earned a reputation as a sharp and fearless jurist who does not let powerful interests bully her into departing from the rule of law. In 1995, for example, she issued an injunction against Major League Baseball owners, effectively ending a baseball strike that had become the longest work stoppage in professional sports history and had caused the cancellation of the World Series the previous fall. She was widely lauded for saving baseball. Claude Lewis of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that by saving the season, Judge Sotomayor joined “the ranks of Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson and Ted Williams.”
A Tough, Fair and Thoughtful Jurist
President Clinton appointed Judge Sotomayor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1998. She is the first Latina to serve on that court, and has participated in over 3000 panel decisions, authoring roughly 400 published opinions. Sitting on the Second Circuit, Judge Sotomayor has tackled a range of questions: from difficult issues of constitutional law, to complex procedural matters, to lawsuits involving complicated business organizations. In this context, Sotomayor is widely admired as a judge with a sophisticated grasp of legal doctrine. “’She appreciates the complexity of issues,’ said Stephen L. Carter, a Yale professor who teaches some of her opinions in his classes. Confronted with a tough case, Carter said, ‘she doesn’t leap at its throat but reasons to get to the bottom of issues.’” For example, in United States v. Quattrone, Judge Sotomayor concluded that the trial judge had erred by forbidding the release of jurors’ names to the press, concluding after carefully weighing the competing concerns that the trial judge’s concerns for a speedy and orderly trial must give way to the constitutional freedoms of speech and the press.
Sotomayor also has keen awareness of the law’s impact on everyday life. Active in oral arguments, she works tirelessly to probe both the factual details and the legal doctrines in the cases before her and to arrive at decisions that are faithful to both. She understands that upholding the rule of law means going beyond legal theory to ensure consistent, fair, common-sense application of the law to real-world facts. For example, In United States v. Reimer, 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 and a series of similar cases, she ordered renewed consideration of the asylum claims of Chinese women who experienced or were threatened with forced birth control, evincing in her opinions a keen awareness of those women’s plights.
Judge Sotomayor’s appreciation of the real-world implications of judicial rulings is paralleled by her sensible practicality in evaluating the actions of law enforcement officers. For example, in United States v. Falso, the defendant was convicted of possessing child pornography after FBI agents searched his home with a warrant. The warrant should not have been issued, but the agents did not know that, and Judge Sotomayor wrote for the court that the officers’ good faith justified using the evidence they found. Similarly in United States v. Santa, Judge Sotomayor ruled that when police search a suspect based on a mistaken belief that there is a valid arrest warrant out on him, evidence found during the search should not be suppressed. Ten years later, in Herring v. United States, the Supreme Court reached the same conclusion. In her 1997 confirmation hearing, Sotomayor spoke of her judicial philosophy, saying” I don’t believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.” Her record on the Second Circuit holds true to that statement. For example, in Hankins v. Lyght, she argued in dissent that the federal government risks “an unconstitutional trespass” if it attempts to dictate to religious organizations who they can or cannot hire or dismiss as spiritual leaders. Since joining the Second Circuit, Sotomayor has honored the Constitution, the rule of law, and justice, often forging consensus and winning conservative colleagues to her point of view.
A Commitment to Community
Judge Sotomayor is deeply committed to her family, to her co-workers, and to her community. Judge Sotomayor is a doting aunt to her brother Juan’s three children and an attentive godmother to five more. She still speaks to her mother, who now lives in Florida, every day. At the courthouse, Judge Sotomayor helped found the collegiality committee to foster stronger personal relationships among members of the court. Seizing an opportunity to lead others on the path to success, she recruited judges to join her in inviting young women to the courthouse on Take Your Daughter to Work Day, and mentors young students from troubled neighborhoods Her favorite project, however, is the Development School for Youth program, which sponsors workshops for inner city high school students. Every semester, approximately 70 students attend 16 weekly workshops that are designed to teach them how to function in a work setting. The workshop leaders include investment bankers, corporate executives and Judge Sotomayor, who conducts a workshop on the law for 25 to 35 students. She uses as her vehicle the trial of Goldilocks and recruits six lawyers to help her. The students play various roles, including the parts of the prosecutor, the defense attorney, Goldilocks and the jurors, and in the process they get to experience openings, closings, direct and cross-examinations. In addition to the workshop experience, each student is offered a summer job by one of the corporate sponsors. The experience is rewarding for the lawyers and exciting for the students, commented Judge Sotomayor, as “it opens up possibilities that the students never dreamed of before.” [Federal Bar Council News, Sept./Oct./Nov. 2005, p.20] This is one of many ways that Judge Sotomayor gives back to her community and inspires young people to achieve their dreams.
She has served as a member of the Second Circuit Task Force on Gender, Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts and was formerly on the Boards of Directors of the New York Mortgage Agency, the New York City Campaign Finance Board, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
