Another first with Sotomayor

On May 26, President Barack Obama nominated federal judge Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. In this historic move, she became the first member of the Latina/o community to be named to the high court in its 220-year history, and only the third woman.

Given all the attempts by the ruling class in this country to drive a wedge between the Black and Latina/o communities, it is noteworthy that it took the first African-American president to break with both racist and sexist tradition and nominate a Latina to the high court.

However, Judge Sotomayor’s name was barely spoken when the right-wing vitriol began. The same reactionary forces who attacked the historic election of Obama have now aimed their fire at her.

Predictably, diehard right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Tom Tancredo have attacked her as a woman and for her Puerto Rican heritage. They have assailed her past affiliation with highly respected civil rights organizations that have advocated for the Latina/o community and fought for affirmative action, including the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (now LatinoJustice PRLDF) and the National Council of La Raza.

The far right, who have so many ways of getting their views into the corporate media, are looking to whip up a racist, anti-woman reaction in the population. So far, that has not worked, according to a recent Associated Press poll showing Sotomayor with more popular support than any of George W. Bush’s nominees.

Nevertheless, her attackers persist in trying to find arguments that could rope in the more “moderate” capitalist politicians and get them to vote against her nomination.

Because of Sotomayor’s long-time history of support and activism for affirmative action policies for women and people of color, as a student and then in her professional career, the outrageous and phony charge of “reverse racism” has been leveled against her.

Every word she has ever said or written is under scrutiny. They are zeroing in on the claim that she has shown “empathy” and therefore cannot be “objective.” She’s been assailed for having “identity” politics because of a statement she made in 2001 when she talked honestly about how judges are influenced by their genders and national origins. She said then, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

She was only stating the obvious fact: when the court was all-white and all-male, it voted time and again to uphold race and sex discrimination.

The Supreme Court, of course, has never been “objective.” Its decisions have generally favored the dominant class in this oppressive capitalist system. When slavery was most profitable in the South, the court found reasons to justify its existence. When the railroads wanted to expand into the West, the court ratified their land grabs from Native peoples.

Just in the last few years, the court’s majority has ruled to protect corporations, denied working women equal pay and pensions, curtailed the right to legal counsel that mainly affects poor people, and denied death penalty appeals. Sotomayor, by contrast, advised against the use of capital punishment, as it's associated with racism. The majority of those on death row in the U.S. are people of color.

The archconservative justices on the court are even threatening to undo portions of the monumental Voting Rights Act. They have made it clear that they don’t intend to remedy class, racial or gender injustices.

If Sotomayor is confirmed after such a strong attack on affirmative action in Congress and in the corporate media, there is no guarantee how she will vote on all issues. However, her accession to the court will be a historic advance for the democratic rights of all women and Latinas/os.