In one case, Justice Sotomayor stood up for a white police officer who was fired for distributing racist materials. Sotomayor ruled that while the police officer's speech was “patently offensive, hateful, and insulting,” the Second Circuit should not “gloss over three decades of jurisprudence and the centrality of First Amendment freedoms in our lives just because it is confronted with speech is does not like.”
Of the 96 cases, Judge Sotomayor and the panel rejected the claims of discrimination roughly 78 times, and agreed with the claims of discrimination 10 times. Of the 10 cases favoring claims of discrimination, 9 were unanimous. Of those 9, in 7, the unanimous panel included at least one Republican-appointed judge. In the one divided panel opinion, the dissent’s point dealt only with the technical question of whether the criminal defendant in that case had forfeited his challenge to the jury selection in his case.Despite Goldstein’s analysis pointing to the fact that Judge Sotomayor rejected discrimination-related claims by a margin of roughly 8 to 1, allegations of judicial racism continue to fly in the face of fact. Fortunately, the American public appears to be moving past the hype. A recent USA Today/Gallup Poll shows general support for Sotomayor’s nomination. 54 percent of respondents wanted to see Justice Sotomayor confirmed, while 28 percent wanted her to be rejected, and 19 percent had not yet decided. This is a heartening step away from the fear mongering generated by Sotomayor detractors, towards a public debate based on fact, not unsubstantiated charges of racism. America remains hopeful as Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings begin on July 13th.
Judge Sotomayor and Race — Results from the Full Data Set [SCOTUSBlog]
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