PEP, September 2009: Call her Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Loud applause broke out in Washington’s normally hushed Supreme Court building as Justice Sonia Sotomayor took the oath of office Aug. 8, and fans nationwide proudly donned “wise Latina woman” T-shirts.

Like Barack Obama’s November election to the presidency, the rise of a working-class Puerto Rican woman raised by a single mother in a Bronx housing project to the highest court of the land marked a watershed moment in U.S. history.

Sotomayor is the first Latina, the first woman of color, and only the third woman in the high court’s 220 years. There have been only two African Americans among the 111 members of the court.

At an emotion-filled White House reception for the new justice on Aug. 12, Obama said her 68-31 confirmation by the Senate “tore down yet one more barrier and affirmed our belief that in America, the doors of opportunity must be open to all.”

Sotomayor’s accession to the Supreme Court owed much to long years of struggle for racial, ethnic and gender equality by minorities, women, progressives and many unions, to a wonderful upbringing by her mother, Celina, and a close-knit family, and to her own extraordinary intelligence, determination, hard work and readiness to fight discrimination. Celina, a retired nurse, held the Bible and brother Juan, a doctor from Syracuse, stood by her as she took the judicial oath.

Distinguished career

She excelled at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, won a scholarship to Princeton and earned her law degree at Yale. Her diverse and distinguished career — a classic American success story — included working as an assistant Manhattan district attorney and as a private attorney before President George H.W. Bush named her to the federal district court in 1992. President Bill Clinton elevated her to the Court of Appeals in 1998.

When Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor had more judicial experience than any nominee in the last 100 years and a record of fairness and impartiality in 700 rulings from the bench.

Yet in her 10-week battle for Senate approval, she had to endure a vicious Republican smear campaign based on racist stereotypes. Opponents called her “an intellectual lightweight, a “far left” judge and even a “racist” who would let her ethnicity influence her decisions.

Although she was attacked for saying the “richness of experience” of a “wise Latina woman” could help in judicial decision making, Obama praised her understanding of the impact of the law “on how we work and worship and raise our families, on whether we have the opportunities we need to live the lives we imagine.”

Obama said her achievement had great meaning for the whole country. “It’s about every child who will grow up thinking, if Sonia Sotomayor can make it, then maybe I can, too.”

Carmen Flores, the co-chair of DC 37’s Latino Heritage Committee, understood the significance of the historic event. “I see my granddaughter having an opportunity to reach that pinnacle,” she said.

— Bill Schleicher