The Affirmative Action Justice
Posted on June 11th, 2009
by Patrick J. Buchanan |
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Having lost the Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008, Republicans are looking to redefine themselves for a nation that still leans conservative but is less Republican that it has been in decades.
The nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court presents just such an opportunity. For, even if the party loses the battle and Sotomayor sits on the court, it can win the war, as Ronald Reagan won the Panama Canal debate, even as Senate Republicans committed collective suicide by voting to give away the canal.
What are the grounds for rejecting Sonia Sotomayor?
No one has brought forth the slightest evidence she has the intellectual candlepower to sit on the Roberts court. By her own admission, Sotomayor is an “affirmative action baby.”
Though the Obama media have been ballyhooing her brilliance — No. 1 in high school, No. 1 at Princeton, editor of Yale Law Review — her academic career appears to have been a fraud from beginning to end, a testament to Ivy League corruption.
Two weeks ago, The New York Times reported that, to get up to speed on her English skills at Princeton, Sotomayor was advised to read children’s classics and study basic grammar books during her summers. How do you graduate first in your class at Princeton if your summer reading consists of “Chicken Little” and “The Troll Under the Bridge”?
In video clips dating back 25 years, and now provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sotomayor, according to the Times, even calls herself an “affirmative action product.”
“The clips include lengthy remarks about her experiences as an ‘affirmative action baby,’ whose lower test scores were overlooked by admissions committees at Princeton University and Yale Law School because, she said, she is Hispanic and had grown up in poor circumstance.”
“If we had gone through the traditional numbers route of those institutions,” says Sotomayor, “it would have been highly questionable if I would have been accepted. … My test scores were not comparable to that of my classmates.”
Thus, Sotomayor got into Princeton, got her No. 1 ranking, was whisked into Yale Law School and made editor of the Yale Law Review — all because she was a Hispanic woman. And those two Ivy League institutions cheated more deserving students of what they had worked a lifetime to achieve, for reasons of race, gender or ethnicity.
This is bigotry pure and simple. To salve their consciences for past societal sins, the Ivy League is deep into discrimination again, this time with white males as victims rather than as beneficiaries.
One prefers the old bigotry. At least it was honest, and not, as Abraham Lincoln observed, adulterated “with the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
As the Times reports, on the tapes, Sotomayor rejects “the proposition that minorities must become advocates of ’selection by merit alone.’ She said diversity improved the legal system.”
“‘Since I have difficultly defining merit and what merit alone means, and … whether it’s judicial or otherwise, I accept that different experiences, in and of itself, bring merit to the system,’ she said, adding, ‘I think it brings to the system more of a sense of fairness when these litigants see people like myself on the bench.”
What does the latest Times revelation tell us?
That were it not for Ivy League dishonesty, Sotomayor would not have gotten into Princeton, would never have been ranked first in her class, would not have gotten into Yale Law, nor been named editor of Yale Law Review, and thus would not be a U.S. appellate court judge today or a nominee to the Supreme Court.
Indeed, the White House itself leaked that the final four court candidates were all women and Sotomayor was picked because she was a Latina. One wonders how many superior students and judges have been passed over to advance Sonia Sotomayor’s career?
From college days to court days, that career reflects, in word and deed, a determination to use any power she achieves to create a society where the demands of diversity triumph over the ideal of equal justice under law. For Sotomayor, the advancement of people of color over white males is justice.
Republican senators should use this Sotomayor nomination to put affirmative action in the dock for what it is — race-based bigotry against white males so that persons of color can receive the rewards of society that they could not win in free and fair competition.
Lay out the Sotomayor record — SAT scores, LSAT scores, bar exam score, law review articles and her opinions — so that we can see up close what those who eviscerated Robert Bork regard as academic and judicial excellence.
No need for name-calling.
Just lay out the lady’s opinions and record, so that, if she is elevated, Americans can say: Barack Obama voted against Chief Justice Roberts because Roberts could not measure up to Sonia Sotomayor, his ideal of what a justice ought to be.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
I’m may not agree with Sotomayor’s political orientation, but Pat makes a common elitist error here of confusing wisdom with intelligence. Sotomayor’s test scores and academic record are irrelevant. And backing out how she was admitted to college and law school are also irrelevant. Sotomayor was a product of the process, she didn’t drive it. The only relevance in assessing her for the Supreme Court is the quality of the work she has displayed as an attorney and judge.
One more thing, the Ivy League schools have significant set-aside blocks for legacy applicants (e.g., George Bush). Plenty of white guy mediocrities get admitted by the same back door process. If you want to legitimately go after academic set asides, the argument has to be total.
Dear Mr. Buchanan:
I don’t follow your logic. Let’s assume Princeton accepted Sotomayor because she was Hispanic. What evidence do you have that she graduated first in her class at Princeton for any reason other than she did better than all of her classmates? Are you alleging that all (or most) of her professors inflated her grades because of her race? I have never seen any evidence to suggest that any professors do that, let alone enough of them to allow Sotomayor to graduate first in her class. Where do you imagine she would have graduated otherwise? It would take a remarkably heavy thumb on the scale to bring from, say, the bottom half to first. Or are you saying that maybe she would have graduated number two? Number ten? Top ten percent? Graduating anywhere in that range, by the way, would suggest that she belonged at Princeton, wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t that suggest that Princeton was right to consider her high test scores in light of her background? There is no coherence in your argument and you’re too intelligent for that to be a mistake.
Regards,
Brian Radigan
Pat,thanks for your usual interesting and insightful post.
The questioning of Sonia Sotomayor should be a simple matter.
#1 - Is she likely to be confirmed? Do the Democrats have enough votes to override any Republican objection?
#2 - If #1 is “yes”, then what is the goal of the Republicans? (If #1 is definitely “no”, then that is a gamechanger, and differs from my present assumptions). If she is to be confirmed, can WE THE PUBLIC use this as an opportunity to identify REPUBLICAN obstructionists and grandstanders, that would hurt our cause? (We may later need to BEGIN TO WEED THESE OUT of Congress/house/senate).
#3 - If she will PROBABLY BE CONFIRMED, then it is legitimate to note our objections and questions, without ALIENATING a lifetime Supreme Court Appointee, and also the Latino community.
Here are SOME of our questions:
Did SOTOMAYOR intend to say that the Latina point of view is superior to some “white” point of view? Has she changed her mind, since making those statements?
Or, did she intend to point out that EVERYONE has experiences that would help them make BETTER decisions than perhaps someone else would be able to make, without those experiences?
If it would be legitimate to ask a GAMBLING ADDICT whether or not they would make decisions by a ROLL OF THE DICE, so too it would be acceptable for us to ask:
#1 - Can the Supreme Court be used to insure equity for a minority, based on the percentage of the US population they represent?
#2 - Can the Supreme Court be used to established a “favored minority” status, for anyone the judge is sympathetic to?
#3 - Can the Supreme Court be used to “compensate” for past wrongs or inequities, by rewarding a minority to a degree LARGER than the scope of the current specific case being considered?
After thorough examination, I probably would vote for confirmation, and cross my fingers hoping she makes sense in the right-to-life and gay-marriage areas (I am personally for both of these, in a carefully and balanced approach, that takes everyone’s needs into account).
Sotomayor did not “graduate first in her class” at Princeton. She was awarded the Pyne Prize, the highest undergraduate honor, which takes into account not only academic performance but also extracurricular activities. Princeton does not rank its graduating class but does designate a valedictorian, who is usually one of several candidates with an over-4.0 GPA (the salutatorian is the top Classics major, and delivers a Latin address). The wikipedia article on Sotomayor states that she “got almost all As her last two years at Princeton.” Nowhere near what would be required to be “first in the class.”
No grade inflation at universities? You obviously never went to college Mr. Radigan.
“For Sotomayor, the advancement of people of color over white males is justice.”
Spot on as usual Mr. B
Just out of curiousity, Pat, where did you graduate in your class?
What amazes me is the fact that we are now allowed to question a candidates background in order to gauge their future performance as a justice. The last time we went through this process I was told that the people chose the president and that the congress should go with his decision and not question his choices. The people have spoken! Up and down votes or we go nuculer!