To the Editor:
Re “A Judge’s Focus on Race Issues May Be Hurdle” (front page, May 30):
Criticism and support of Sonia Sotomayor’s elevation to the Supreme Court expose tensions between legitimate and improper considerations of race and ethnicity. Both camps should be able to readily agree on the difference between an inclusionary use of race to break up, say, exclusionary and discriminatory employment patterns in the workplace or all-male, all-white admissions to colleges, on the one hand; and the improper use of race to prejudge a case, or to separate, stereotype or subjugate and demean litigants or other persons on the basis of “race.”
In my view, too much is made of Judge Sotomayor’s ethnicity (by her supporters and detractors) and not enough attention is paid to whether ethnic polarization is good for public policy. There is nothing wrong with having a more diverse Supreme Court ethnically and gender-wise, but there is everything wrong with thinking that a justice’s ethnicity or gender or her impoverished upbringing can or should predict—or even guide—her jurisprudence.
The surest way to delay America’s ever becoming a post-racial society is to split ourselves into warring skin-color camps and ethnic enclaves cheering or denigrating a judge because of her “life story” or her tribal allegiances.
Michael Meyers
President
New York Civil Rights Coalition
New York, May 30, 2009
