Talk:Sonia Sotomayor

This page has been mentioned by media organizations. The mentions are in: Marty Kaplan (26 May 2009). "Sonia's Wiki Wonder". Huffington Post.

10 most important cases as judge

As for rulings in general, starting on page 88 of her Senate Judiciary Committee questionnaire responses, she lists her 10 most important cases as judge. Someone should probably check them against the article to see if they're all there. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:30, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

---

Here they are (and, yes, as a product of a process of the United States federal government, these are in the public domain):

(1) Silverman v. Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee, Inc., No. 95 Civ. 2054 (SS), 880 F. Supp. 246 (S.D.N.Y. 1995) (District Judge Sotomayor), affirmed, 67 F.3d 1054 (2d Cir. 1995) Nature of the Case: This action by the National Labor Relations Board alleged that the major league baseball owners engaged in unfair labor practices during the 1994-1995 players strike. Disposition: The district court issued a preliminary injunction against the major league owners, ordering them to restore the terms and conditions of employment provided under their most recent agreement with the players. The court concluded that the National Labor Relations Board, which brought the action against the owners, had reasonable cause to believe that the owners committed unfair labor practices when they revoked the salary arbitration clause and the free agency anticollusive provision in their most recent agreement with the players absent a good faith impasse. The court also concluded that an injunction was just and proper based on the possible harm to the public, the players, and the NLRB. The Second Circuit affirmed the preliminary injunction order. The case was administratively closed on June 26, 2001.

(2) Clarett v. National Football League, 369 F.3d 124 (2d Cir. 2004) (Judge Sotomayor, writing for a panel including Judge Sack, and District Judge Kaplan, of the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation) Nature of the Case: A football player sued the NFL, arguing that an NFL rule that limited eligibility for the NFL entry draft to players who were three full college football seasons removed from high school graduation constituted an unreasonable restraint of trade in violation of section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, and section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U.S.C. § 15. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of the player, and the NFL appealed. Disposition: On appeal, the Court of Appeals ordered judgment in favor of the NFL. The Court held that the NFL’s eligibility rules are immune from antitrust scrutiny under the non-statutory labor exemption, a long-recognized rule that, in order to accommodate the collective bargaining process, certain concerted activity among and between labor and employers must be held to be beyond the reach of the antitrust laws. The Court concluded that the conditions under which a prospective player will be considered for employment as an NFL player are for the union representative and the NFL to determine, and that the fact that the NFL and players’ union did not bargain over the rule did not exclude the rule from the scope of the non-statutory exemption. Subsequent history: The Court reversed the district court’s judgment and remanded to the district court with directions to enter judgment in favor of the NFL. The player’s petition for certiorari was denied. On remand, the district court denied the plaintiff’s motion for reimbursement of attorneys’ fees and litigation expenses on the ground that he was not the prevailing party, and closed the case.

(3) United States v. Quattrone, 402 F.3d 304 (2d Cir. 2005) (Judge Sotomayor, writing for a panel including Judges Cardomone and Cabranes) Nature of the Case: This case arose from the prosecution of Frank Quattrone, a former executive of the bank Credit Suisse First Boston, for allegedly obstructing investigations into the bank’s handling of initial public offerings of certain technology companies during the Internet boom of the late 1990s. In an effort to protect the integrity of Mr. Quattrone’s second criminal trial, after the first ended in a deadlocked jury and mistrial, the district court issued an order forbidding members of the media from publishing, during the trial, the names of jurors that were disclosed in open court. Disposition: The Court of Appeals struck down the district court’s order as an unjustified prior restraint on expression in violation of the Free Speech and Free Press Clauses of the First Amendment. Although sensitive to the district court’s attempt to protect the fairness of the criminal trial, the Court reasoned that the order unnecessarily infringed both the right against prior restraints on speech and the right to report freely on events that transpire in an open courtroom. Subsequent history: Mr. Quattrone was convicted, but the conviction was vacated by a later panel of the Court of Appeals. See United States v. Quattrone, 441 F.3d 153 (2d Cir. 2006). On remand from that appeal, Mr. Quattrone and the government entered into a deferred prosecution agreement.

(4) Ford v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 582 (2d Cir. 2003) (Judge Sotomayor, writing for a panel including Judge Wesley, and District Court Judge Pollack, of United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation) Nature of the Case: A prison inmate brought a First Amendment action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against corrections officials, alleging that the refusal to serve a religious feast in a high-security area infringed his religious rights. The district court granted the corrections officials’ motion for summary judgment, and the inmate appealed. Disposition: The Court of Appeals held that the that the corrections officials were not entitled to summary judgment on the grounds relied upon by the district court. The Court explained that the district court had erroneously focused its analysis under the Free Exercise Clause on the objective validity of the religious belief, instead of on the sincerity of the inmate’s belief in the feast’s religious significance. The Court further held that there existed a factual dispute concerning whether the inmate’s religious exercise had been substantially burdened and that the record was insufficient to determine whether legitimate penological interests justified the officials’ conduct. Subsequent history: The Court of Appeals vacated the district court’s grant of summary judgment and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the decision. The parties subsequently stipulated to dismiss the case.

(5) In re NYSE Specialists Securities Litigation, 503 F.3d 89 (2d Cir. 2007) (Judge Sotomayor, writing for a panel including Chief Judge Jacobs and Judge Leval) Nature of the Case: Investors filed class actions under federal securities laws, alleging that the New York Stock Exchange (“NYSE”) failed to adequately monitor and police trading by its floor-trading firms, and made misrepresentations about the market’s integrity. The district court dismissed the claims, and the investors appealed. Disposition: The Court of Appeals held that the NYSE’s absolute immunity, arising from its quasi-governmental role in the regulation of the securities market, extended to the nonexercise of its regulatory power. Consequently, the NYSE was entitled to absolute immunity from liability based on its alleged regulatory failure to take action against the firms’ conduct. But the Court held that plaintiffs had standing to bring their Rule 10b-5 claim for the NYSE’s alleged misrepresentations. Subsequent history: The Court of Appeals affirmed the judgment of the district court that the NYSE was entitled to absolute immunity based on its alleged regulatory failure, vacated the judgment with respect to plaintiffs’ standing and remanded for proceedings consistent with its decision. The petition for writ of certiorari was subsequently denied. California Public Employees’ Retirement System v. New York Stock Exchange, 128 S.Ct. 1707 (2008). For appellants: Eric A. Isaacson Coughlin, Stoia, Gellar, Rudman & Robbins LLP 655 West Broadway, Suite 1900 San Diego, CA 92101 (619) 231-1058 For appellees: Debra M. Torres Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP One New York Plaza New York, NY 10004 (212) 859-8028

(6) Farrell v. Burke, 449 F.3d 470 (2d Cir. 2006) (Judge Sotomayor, writing for a panel including Judge Katzmann, and Judge Eaton of the United States Court of International Trade, sitting by designation) Nature of the Case: A former state parolee, who had been convicted of sexual crimes involving minors, brought an action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against his parole officers, alleging that they violated his constitutional rights under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by imposing and enforcing a special condition of parole that prohibited his possession of “pornographic material.” The district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, and the plaintiff appealed. Disposition: The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s judgment in favor of the defendants. The Court explained that even if the term “pornography” is inherently vague, the materials the plaintiff possessed – which contained sexually explicit pictures and lurid descriptions of sex between men and boys – fit within “any reasonable understanding of the term [pornography].” Accordingly, the Court concluded that the plaintiff’s parole condition was not unconstitutionally vague as applied to his conduct. Because the plaintiff’s as-applied vagueness challenge failed, and because he could not demonstrate that the no-pornography condition threatened to chill the exercise of substantial constitutionally protected conduct, the Court did not reach the question whether the parole condition was impermissibly vague on its face. The Court also rejected the plaintiff’s First Amendment overbreadth challenge.

(7) United States v. Falso, 544 F.3d 110 (2d Cir. 2008) (Judge Sotomayor, writing for the panel, with Chief Judge Jacobs joining in part and dissenting in part and Judge Livingston joining in part and concurring in the judgment); 293 Fed. Appx. 838 (2d Cir. 2008) (summary order) (Chief Judge Jacobs and Judges Sotomayor and Livingston) Nature of the Case: In this criminal action, the defendant was convicted, upon a conditional guilty plea, of 242 counts relating to child pornography and traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with minors. The district court had previously denied the defendant’s motion to suppress evidence seized from his home and computer pursuant to a search warrant and statements he made to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. The district court sentenced the defendant to 30 years in prison. The defendant appealed the denial of his motion to suppress. Disposition: The Court of Appeals affirmed the defendant’s conviction, and Judge Sotomayor drafted the panel opinion. A majority of the panel (Jacobs, C.J. & Sotomayor, J.) held that the search warrant was not supported by probable cause, and a differently aligned majority of the panel (Sotomayor & Livingston, J.J.) held that the motion to suppress was nevertheless properly denied because the good-faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied. Accordingly, a majority of the panel affirmed the denial of the defendant’s motion to suppress the physical evidence seized from his home. The opinion explained that the good-faith exception applied because the judge that issued the search warrant was not knowingly misled and the affidavit in support of the warrant was not so lacking in indicia of probable cause as to render reliance unreasonable. In a separate order, the Court of Appeals unanimously held that the district court properly denied the defendant’s motion to suppress his statements to the FBI agents.

(8) Shi Liang Lin v. United States Department of Justice, 494 F.3d 296 (2d Cir. 2007) (en banc) (Judge Sotomayor, concurring, in an opinion joined by Judge Pooler) Nature of the Case: Three applicants, whose respective girlfriends and fiancée allegedly were victimized by China’s family planning policies, appealed the decisions of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) denying asylum. The Second Circuit ordered a hearing en banc to consider the BIA’s rationale for extending a per se presumption of persecution to spouses, but not to non-married partners, of individuals who had been involuntarily subjected to an abortion or sterilization. Disposition: The Second Circuit held that the statute providing refugee status to applicants who had undergone forced abortions or involuntary sterilization does not provide those applicants’ spouses, boyfriends, or fiancés with automatic eligibility for refugee status. Judge Sotomayor’s opinion concurring in the judgment argued that, because the cases before the Court involved only unmarried petitioners, it was inappropriate for the majority to opine on whether its holding extended to spouses. In particular, the opinion explained that “the majority’s conclusion disregards the immutable fact that a desired pregnancy in a country with a coercive population control program necessarily” affected both spouses “and that the state’s interference with this fundamental right may have subtle, far reaching and devastating effects for both husband and wife.” Id. at 330. Subsequent history: The petitioners’ petition for certiorari was denied.

(9) United States v. Real Property Known as 77 East 3rd Street, New York, NY, No. 85 Civ. 3351, 849 F. Supp. 876 (S.D.N.Y. 1994); 869 F. Supp. 1042 (S.D.N.Y. 1994); 1994 WL 4288 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 1994); 1994 WL 4276 (Jan. 4, 1994) (District Judge Sotomayor) Nature of the Case: This case was a civil forfeiture action brought by the government pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 881(a)(7) to forfeit defendant in rem, the building and real property located at 77 East 3rd Street, New York, New York (together the “Building”). The government alleged that the New York City Chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (the “Club”) used the Building to store and distribute narcotics. Sandy Alexander, his wife Colette Alexander, and the Church of Angels subsequently intervened as claimants. Disposition: Following an approximately five-week trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of all of the claimants. The jury found that the claimants had proven, by a preponderance of the evidence, that defendant-in-rem, the Building, was not used, or intended to be used, to commit, or to facilitate the commission of, a felony drug violation between October 12, 1984 and May 2, 1985. The district court issued two published opinions in connection with this action. One opinion resolved pre-trial motions. 849 F. Supp. 876 (S.D.N.Y. 1994) (granting the government’s motion to impanel an anonymous jury in light of the Club members’ history of violence). The second opinion denied the government’s post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law pursuant to Rule 50(b) or for a new trial under Rule 59(a). 869 F. Supp. 1042 (S.D.N.Y. 1994). The district court also issued two unpublished opinions resolving pre-trial motions. 1994 WL 4288 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 1994) (denying intervenor claimants’ motion to dismiss the government’s Third Amended Complaint on the grounds that the forfeiture violates the Fifth Amendment’s Double Jeopardy Clause); 1994 WL 4276 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 1994) (denying intervenor claimants’ motions (1) to bifurcate the probable cause hearing from the innocent owner portion of the forfeiture trial; (2) to allow them to present their evidence on the question of their innocent ownership of the Building before the Government presents its case on probable cause and to then be allowed to rebut the Government’s case; and (3) to dismiss the forfeiture complaint and to suppress evidence seized at the Building at the time of the Building’s arrest

(10) Croll v. Croll, 229 F.3d 133 (2d Cir. 2000) (Judge Sotomayor, dissenting from a decision authored by Judge Jacobs and joined by Judge Michel, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sitting by designation) Nature of the Case: A father sought an order compelling his wife to return their minor child to Hong Kong under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, implemented by the International Child Abduction Remedies Act. The district court entered judgment in favor of the father and issued the order. Disposition: On appeal, the majority held that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order the return of the child to Hong Kong because a ne exeat provision in a Hong Kong custody order (which provided, with limited exceptions, that the child not be removed from Hong Kong without leave until she attained 18 years of age) did not confer “rights of custody” on either the father or the Hong Kong court. Judge Sotomayor dissented, arguing that the ne exeat clause gave “rights of custody” to the father within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the father’s petition to return the child to Hong Kong therefore should have been granted. Judge Sotomayor concluded that the mother had breached the father’s right of custody by removing the child from Hong Kong without the consent of the father or the Hong Kong court. Subsequent history: The father’s petition for certiorari was denied. On remand, the district court dismissed the father’s petition for return of the child and closed the case. The federal courts of appeals are split on the question whether a ne exeat clause can confer “rights of custody” upon a parent. A number of the decisions addressing this issue have cited the Croll majority and/or dissent. See Furnes v. Reeves, 362 F.3d 702, 718 n.13, 719, 720 n.15, 721 n.16, 722 nn.17-18 (11th Cir. 2004) (following the Croll dissent); but see Abbott v. Abbott, 542 F.3d 1081, 1087 (5th Cir. 2008) (holding, with the Croll majority, that ne exeat clauses do not confer “rights of custody” upon a parent); Fawcett v. McRoberts, 326 F.3d 491, 500 (4th Cir. 2003) (same); Gonzalez v. Gutierrez, 311 F.3d 942, 944 (9th Cir. 2002) (same). A petition for certiorari raising this question is pending before the United States Supreme Court. Abbott v. Abbott, Docket No. 08-645. Legal opinions in the United Kingdom and South Africa have analyzed the Croll decision and favorably discussed the dissent’s reasoning. See Sonderup v. Tondelli, [2001] 1 SA 1171 (CC) at 22-24 (S. Afr.); In re D (A Child), [2007] 1 A.C. 619, 628-29, 634-35 (H.L.).

Cheers! bd2412 T 01:45, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

So are any of these missing from the article? All this legalese is a MEGO to me ... that must be why I abandoned being a pre-law student ... Wasted Time R (talk) 03:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

From the above we are missing (4) Ford v. McGinnis, 352 F.3d 582 (2d Cir. 2003); (5) In re NYSE Specialists Securities Litigation, 503 F.3d 89 (2d Cir. 2007); (6) Farrell v. Burke, 449 F.3d 470 (2d Cir. 2006); (7) United States v. Falso, 544 F.3d 110 (2d Cir. 2008); (8) Shi Liang Lin v. United States Department of Justice, 494 F.3d 296 (2d Cir. 2007); (9) United States v. Real Property Known as 77 East 3rd Street, New York, NY, No. 85 Civ. 3351, 849 F. Supp. 876 (S.D.N.Y. 1994); 869 F. Supp. 1042 (S.D.N.Y. 1994); 1994 WL 4288 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 4, 1994); 1994 WL 4276 (Jan. 4, 1994); and (10) Croll v. Croll, 229 F.3d 133 (2d Cir. 2000).

It's entirely subjective but I think Shi Liang Lin is particularly important (finding that a Chinese man should have an opportunity to seek asylum because his wife could be forced to have an abortion if they returned to China), as is Croll (offering in a dissent what is essentially a "father's rights" interpretation of an international treaty on child custody). Cheers! bd2412 T 04:43, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm. You're right that it is subjective, and I suppose we should be guided by what other third-party sources have considered her most important cases, and not what she does. And this Reuters story noted that she didn't put Ricci on her top 10 list. But we could certainly include the two you're mentioning. I'm also inclined to include the Hell's Angels case, because it's the one of these that occurred in her district court and it probably has some visceral interest for the reader. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:59, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, I don't see a lot of third-party discussion of the Hell's Angels case, other than this NYT story at the time, which focuses on the jury ruling and only mentions the judge, and this NYT profile from the following year, which says "Last September, she allowed the Hell's Angels motorcycle club to keep a Manhattan building it owned and called the Government's evidence of drug dealing there 'rather scanty indeed.'" but doesn't give the context where she "allowed" anything. From the description above, that's a reference to her denying the post-trial motion for a judgment against the jury verdict or a new trial? That denial would seem fairly routine to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:28, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I suppose her own estimation of what her most significant cases were is a glimpse into her sense of priorities, but I frankly feel that there's an element of political 'signaling' in the list. She puts a famous baseball and football case at the top, and has two separate cases where she nailed people who committed child-sex related crimes. bd2412 T 16:36, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you're likely right on the political calculation. It's best we use the accumulation of third-party sources to determine what her most important cases and rulings are. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:49, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree (although I'd be surprised if the media didn't pick up on reporting some of these cases based on their presence in the list). bd2412 T 17:20, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree that third-party sources are better as far as which are her most important cases -- although frankly to some extent, it's just a matter of making our own judgments as editors about notability, a subject on which Wikipedians always seem to have their own views (for example, we are currently listing a couple of intellectual property-related cases that I think are of relatively marginal importance, but other people think they're important, so that's fine - I suspect that intellectual property has more interest among Wikipedians than some other subjects like complex financial regulation). I wouldn't read anything at all into Ricci not being on her own top-ten list because her list is entirely of opinions she wrote, and in Ricci she didn't write an opinion (she was just a member of the panel) although you wouldn't know that from reading much of the news coverage! We should be sure to be careful to specify which opinions she actually wrote, which ones she joined as a member of the panel, etc. Of the cases from her list that we don't have, I think BD2412 is right to flag Shi Liang Lin v. United States Department of Justice as one that looks important and maybe we should include. It touches on hot-button issues related to abortion AND immigration and it went en banc. JRtx (talk) 22:53, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Note: the Washington Post has a piece on Sotomayor's record in key cases where the court was divided. The list includes Pappas v. Giuliani (already in the article) and Gant (discussed in the section above), as well as the following:

• Hayden v. Pataki (2006) (felony disenfranchisement versus the Voting Rights Act)
• Hankins v. Lyght (2006) (age discrimination by a church having a mandatory retirement age)
• Galarza v. Keane (2001) (exclusion of Hispanics from a jury pool)
• Brown v. City of Oneonta (2000) (race-based questioning "sweep" of a town where a woman was attacked by a black man)
• Parker v. Columbia Pictures (2000) (firing of an employee injured on the job under the Americans With Disabilities Act)
• Neilson v. Colgate-Palmolive (1999) (discrimination alleged by a woman deemed to be delusional)

We should probably look into including some of these as well. Cheers! bd2412 T 17:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I did earlier include a brief summary of that story's examination in the "Judgeship" section. Wasted Time R (talk) 17:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Bumping this up to avoid auto-archiving before the discussion is resolved. bd2412 T 06:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Javier Sotomayor

Moved to Talk:Sotomayor (disambiguation)

More lead section discussion

With this edit and the edit comment "advocate, active role; according to who? compare to who? loaded political/pov words dont belong in the lead", User:Jmundo removed this text from the lead:

She was an advocate for the hiring of Latino faculty at both schools. She worked as an Assistant District Attorney in New York for five years before entering private practice in 1984. She played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board.

First of all, even if you take out the "advocate" and the "active", that doesn't warrant excising 13 years of her life from the lead, including her first two jobs.

Regarding the sentence about her student activities, that wording has been discussed at length in #"increased" latino representation above, and Jmundo should join the discussion there instead of just categorically removing the statement. There have been numerous press accounts of her activism in school, especially at Princeton, and it's an important part of her biography, so we need to say something about it in the lead.

Regarding her active role on the boards of these organizations, that's biographically very important. It was her visibility from those boards that in large part led to her being seen by Moynihan's staff and being selected for federal judge. In terms of comparison, some people play passive or uninvolved roles on organization boards while some are active; the body of the article, supported by cites from the New York Times and other sources, says she was "vocal" on the State of New York Mortgage Agency, "active" in New York City Campaign Finance Board, and a "a top policy maker who actively worked" in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. The lead is summarizing that text. Read the cited newspaper articles to verify that these descriptions are valid. The lead is completely accurate in using the wording that it did, and I've restored the text. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

This new New York Times story from today gives even further emphasis to this period, and describes her role in Sonyma and the NYCCFB with words like "vigorous", "dogged", "extremely involved", "demanding", etc., and says "If one wants to understand Ms. Sotomayor’s journey from boutique corporate lawyer to strikingly young federal judge, the eight-year stretch from 1984 to 1992 offers the best window into her maturation as a public figure." The lead section is quite appropriate in including this period and describing it as it does. And I've incorporated material from the new story into the body of the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

The lead section is a summary of the main points, but it mentions her involment in the Puerto Rican Defend Fund using the political code word "active". I object to this description because I know many "extremely involved" and "active" lawyers and she doesn't fit the profile. According to the Washington Post "The organization's board had a limited role -- at bimonthly meetings... it generally left the legal tactics to the dozen or so staff lawyers....I wouldn't describe [the board] as a bunch of firebrands...Her social activism does not shed light on whether she has, as a trial judge or later on the appellate bench, been a "judicial activist" -- the derogatory label conservatives sometimes apply to liberal jurists." 1. But I don't have time to edit or discuss so I supposed is your call, after all your are the "active" and "extremely involved" editor in this article ;) --J^mundo 23:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Three issues here. One is what her role was on PRLDEF board. I agree that the WaPo story on it is somewhat at variance with this NYT story and (more briefly) this much earlier NYT story. I chose to go with the NYT takes, because PRLDEF is a New York organization and the NYT has been writing about it ever since its inception (see some of the links in the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund article I've been writing) and they should have a better feel for it. Second is what kind of activist Sotomayor was. Here, every account agrees: moderate, "passionate but civil", determined but not a bomb-thrower, I've seen all those expressions used. I'd love to be able to capture the feel of that in our lead description; I had "moderate activist" in at one point but another editor didn't like it. Third is "active" or "activism" as a buzzword. She was a social activist in school and before becoming judge; that's a good thing, not a bad thing, and if a reader doesn't like it, too bad. "Judicial activism" has become an insult term that's thrown in every direction these days, but as you point out, social activism before becoming a judge has nothing to do with how one behaves once one is a judge. If readers don't understand that, it's not our problem. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:23, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I see you've now added a {{clarify me}} tag to the lead. The clarification comes in the body of the article; we don't typically put footnotes in the lead. The body of the article says, "Sotomayor was a member of the Board of Directors of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund from 1980 to 1992.[53] There she was a top policy maker[5] who actively worked with the organization's lawyers on issues such as New York City hiring practices, police brutality, the death penalty, and voting rights.[53]" As examples of inactive PRLDEF board members, consider some of the others they had: U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, Senator Jacob Javits, Ambassador William vanden Heuvel, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, and New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams (see the PRLDEF article). I'm pretty sure most or all of these people were typical window-dressing-for-the-fundraising-letter-head-type board members, as they would have been too busy or too distracted to be more involved. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:28, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the talk, I have undo my "clarify me" tag. I agree that "moderate activist" is a better description based on the sources, but I know some people will disagree will such boring/neutral adjective. --J^mundo 03:30, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's an LA Times story from today in part about the PRLDEF board. Most board members were picked for their wealth or connections that could benefit the fund, but she was not. Indicating again that she was different from the other board members, and thus much more likely than the others to be active in the fund's operations. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:49, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Archives

This page is gettting so long that we need some sort of archiving. Can someone set it up? - Peregrine Fisher (talk) (contribs) 07:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I just archived about a quarter of it - I'm reluctant to archive any more recent conversations, though. bd2412 T 20:31, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

I set it up for fourteen days. If a thread has not been commented in over fourteen days, then it should be archived and if someone really wants to bring it back up, they can start a new thread. Brothejr (talk) 00:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Something's gone wrong. It's now archiving in Talk:Sonia Sotomayor/Archive 3, having skipped over Talk:Sonia Sotomayor/Archive 2, when there's still plenty of room in Talk:Sonia Sotomayor/Archive 1. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how that happened. Heck, while I put the correct coding per the documentation, I've noticed it works only some of the time. Even the coding on my talk page doesn't even seem to be working at all. Brothejr (talk) 10:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Sotomayor and Gun rights

Just in case any other person wants to add in information about a supposed thesis that Sotomayor wrote a Princeton called "deadly obsession: american gun culture", check out the source of the origional article clamining this. [1] By someone named Nathan Figler of American News Inc. A person who doesn't exist, writing for a new source that doesn't exist with a "satire" tag on the bottom. If you believe that article is acurate I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. TharsHammar ^Bits and^Pieces 19:57, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Quite true, but there are some out there on the internet who will believe it to be quite true. Brothejr (talk) 20:07, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

To quote someone from the Minneapolis Gun Rights Examiner, "There are any number of issues with this report, starting with the fact that the website given for American News, Inc is non-existent, Nathan Figler does not appear to be a journalist, Princeton Law only requires one thesis (although they do write several junior papers), and finally, the entire article seems to be written to cater to the worst fears of conservatives. We have a number of real cases where Judge Sotomayor’s opinions about gun rights are made evident. We do not need to make ourselves look foolish by buying into urban legends." [2] TharsHammar ^Bits and^Pieces 20:30, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

This is all an unfounded Internet rumor. Many of the instances of it don't even make possible sense, as they refer to Sotomayor writing it at Princeton Law (it doesn't have a law school) or as a graduate student at Princeton (she was only an undergrad there). Wasted Time R (talk) 22:55, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Length of lead

User:Hello4321 made changes to the lead section to make it four paragraphs, not three. I believe this is unwise: the fourth paragraph should be reserved for her time as Supreme Court justice if she is confirmed, and is unnecessary if she isn't (how many current appeals court judges have four-paragraph leads?).

Additionally, a couple of editors including Hello4321 have tried to add who the first two Supreme Court justices were to the opening paragraph. I believe this is also unwise. The body of the article already states "She would also be the third woman to serve on the Court, following Sandra Day O'Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg." To introduce both names in the very first paragraph of the article loses the focus on Sotomayor and wanders off on an aside. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:49, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Was she a beneficiary of affirmative action?

One thing that hasn't been conclusively established is whether Sotomayor was a beneficiary of affirmative action in being admitted to Princeton or Yale Law. This NYT story from a few days ago said she "benefited from affirmative action policies" without further details at the start, then said the reverse later on with regard to Yale Law: "Given her standout record at Princeton, said James A. Thomas, a former dean of admissions, Ms. Sotomayor’s background had little role in her acceptance to the school." I included the latter in the article at the time. Now this NYT story from today has Sotomayor herself saying that she was a beneficiary in both places, due to having sub-par standardized test scores. But how would she know on what factors her applications were accepted? No student ever really knows why they were accepted or rejected by any given college. She was a valedictorian in high school, and the Princeton admissions committee may have weighed that highly enough that her SATs didn't matter as much. And she was summa cum laude at Princeton with additional awards and lots of extracurricular activities, and Yale Law may have weighed all that higher than her LSATs (as the former dean seems to indicate). So for now, I'm not planning on adding anything further on this to the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:08, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I think we should take her statements about being a beneficiary of affirmative action at Yale seriously. Only she knows how she did at the LSAT. Moreover, Yale Law is ridiculously difficult to gain admission to. There are plenty of people who graduate summa and PBK from Ivies like Princeton every year who are rejected from Yale Law School. It's frankly implausible that race wouldn't play a factor, especially since Sotomayor herself reports that her LSAT wasn't good enough to otherwise gain admission. 75.34.210.88 (talk) 15:42, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with Wasted Time R on this one - at best her comment that she was a beneficiary of affirmative action is just her guess, as admissions offices absolutely do not reveal what goes into their admissions decisions. Unless documents were released from admissions that stated such, I think we should stay away from speculation in either direction. Tvoz/talk 17:54, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

You also have to deal with how things were in the 1970s, not now. Today, Yale undergraduate admits only 7.5% of applicants and Yale Law only 6.9%. I haven't been able to find a Yale Law figure for 1976, but for Yale undergraduate in the early 1970s, they had over 10,000 applicants for 1,275 freshman spots. That probably equates to a 15% or so acceptance rate (allowing for some turndowns), i.e. twice as easy to get into back then as now. If Yale Law was similar (a guess), then the Yale admission dean's statement may be credible. Princeton's undergrad admissions description back then doesn't give admission percentages, class rank breakdowns or SAT guidelines or anything, all very mysterious. Maybe it depended upon which eating club wanted you. (As it happens I am the same age as Sotomayor, graduated from high school at the same time, and was in the same applicant pool as her for some of the colleges we applied to in common. [Yes, she did better than me, then and now :-] And for some reason I still have the College Board College Handbook from back then, which I'm using to look up admissions stuff.) Wasted Time R (talk) 00:01, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think this question is likely to be resolvable in any definitive way by either journalists or encyclopedia editors. My own best guess is that she may well have been a beneficiary of affirmative action as a high school senior when she was admitted to Princeton, but that it was overdetermined that she would be admitted to Yale Law (i.e. at that point, she definitely did not need any affirmative action). In other words, Princeton took a chance on her, and the chance paid off: she performed outstandingly. As to Yale: While some top graduates of Princeton are indeed rejected from Yale Law every year (even more today than in Sotomayor's time) I doubt that too many winners of the Pyne Prize who apply have ever been rejected from Yale Law, then or now. That particular prize requires major extracurricular achievements and contributions to the life of Princeton as well as stellar grades; that kind of stuff is exactly what the Yale Law admissions people are looking for in order to separate the summa cum laude Ivy League grads they admit from the ones they reject. Even if Sotomayor's LSATs were a bit below the Yale median, Yale tolerates some LSAT variance, and I think her superstar performance at Princeton made her a shoo-in at Yale Law. By shoo-in I mean that some white student who did other, different, but similarly impressive stuff that earned her the Pyne Prize the next year would also have almost certainly been admitted. So I think Thomas' account is quite credible. Sotomayor's own statements that appear to contradict his account need to be read in light of the fact that she was speaking during the affirmative action wars of the 1980s and 1990s, and she was arguing for affirmative action. It would not have furthered her argument, and indeed would have sounded both divisive and ridiculously egotistical, for her to emphasize the possibility that she personally did NOT need affirmative action at Yale, while other minority applicants did. Anyway, she had no personal knowledge of the real reasons for her admission to Yale (as both Wasted Time R and Tvoz have already noted). James Thomas, on the other hand, certainly had personal knowledge. All that said, I don't think this is one we can definitively resolve, so the factual statement as to whether she did or didn't benefit from affirmative action probably does not belong in the article. - JRtx (talk) 04:29, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you about your guesses. One alternate approach for us to take would be in the "Other activities" section, where we talk about the themes of the speeches and discussions she has given over the years. We could say there that she has spoken about how she is an affirmative action success story, and maybe even include the "I am the perfect affirmative action baby" quote that's gotten a fair amount of play the last couple of days (e.g. this CNN story). Doing it this way (rather than in the "College and law school" section), we're portraying it as something she thinks happened rather than as a factual statement. The downside is that this will be a subtle distinction lost on many readers. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:14, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

If this is really the kind of controversy that needs to be in the article, which I'm not convinced it is, then her "perfect affirmative action baby" comment should at a minimum be accompanied by something like The Dean of Admissions of Yale Law School at the time, James Thomas, stated that her outstanding undergraduate record at Princeton ensured her admission; her background played little role. (the ref is "nyt060609ct"). Also, her "affirmative action baby" statements should be put in some kind of context that reflects the fact that she was making an argument for affirmative action, not just telling her life story or something. I think your idea of where to put it is not bad, but I remain unconvinced that this should go in the article at all. In any case I certainly agree that it does not belong in the bio section, as though her arguments on behalf of affirmative action (using herself as an example) reveal actual information about why she got in to Yale Law (which they do not; and anyway this is information she did not and could not know). - JRtx (talk) 05:18, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Somehow I missed this edit by User F203 – I just saw the ones after it to the lead and first section and was dealing with them. If I had seen it, I would have reverted it per the prior discussion here, so I agree with your reversion of it. As for what we do in this article, in the best case we'll get something more definitive reported on the matter. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:54, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

wrong question being asked....not whether she benefitted but that she said she benefitted

The question isn't whether or not she benefitted from affirmative action. The important encyclopedic information is that she said she was an affirmative action baby. This actually shows that the program can do some good and produce supreme court justices! It also was a neutral response to someone's edit that she did not benefit from it, just presenting both sides. But it seems that several people don't want any mention of affirmative action. I don't really care much about this lady or this article. User F203 (talk) 19:24, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added a reference to her remarks on herself and affirmative action to the "Other activities" section, as proposed above. At this point the "affirmative action baby" quote has about 10,000 google hits, so not incorporating it somewhere in the article doesn't seem like an option. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:47, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Mention Estrada?

Ferrylodge has added this to the article: "Republican Senators have pointed out that the Democratic minority in the Senate filibustered the appeals court nomination of Miguel Estrada, who could have become the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice." with this as the edit summary: "We can leave out whether GOP will filibuster, but Estrada needs to go in for NPOV. We have Leahy ridiculing the Senate MAJORITY for merely STALLING."

The reason we include Leahy's remark is that it concerned Sotomayor's nomination. The reason I don't think we should include the Estrada battle is that it had nothing to do with Sotomayor. NPOV isn't the point here. If you were writing an article about Supreme Court battles in the post-Bork era, then yes, you'd include both these episodes. But this article isn't trying to capture Supreme Court battle history, it's just trying to describe Sotomayor's life. If Estrada had been a Supreme Court nominee and was voted down, then maybe it would be worthwhile to mention that he would have been the first Hispanic justice. But he wasn't, and the pile of "ifs" that would make him the first is too big to deal with for this article. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:45, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Estrada is part of this present confirmation. GOP Senators are frequently bringing up his name, and what happened to him. If that's kept out of the present article, then the present article will fail NPOV. The present article would make it sound like those mean Republican racists tried to hassle Sotomayor in 1998, when in fact the history is not nearly so simple.Ferrylodge (talk) 03:49, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

If Bush had nominated Estrada to the Supreme Court it would be relevant. He didn't so it's not. bd2412 T 03:53, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

And what happens if every GOP Senator on TV from now until her confirmation vote emphasizes "Estrada"? Do we still sweep that under the rug? And what if every GOP Senator who votes against her cites Estrada? Still irrelevant?Ferrylodge (talk) 03:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

If Estrada becomes the main point of contention rather than wise Latina or Ricci or judicial activism or bad temperament etc., then yes I would agree that it belongs here. But so far, Estrada is pretty far down the list, mostly I would guess because 90% of Americans don't know who he is. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Many things are part of the current confirmation, but this summary section is just trying to deal with the most frequently mentioned and important of them, which so far have been "wise Latina" (by far) and Ricci v. DeStefano. I'm okay with adding something to make clear that Republicans in 1998 weren't being racist, but rather were just engaged in Senate Byzantinity, but Estrada is a tangent that I don't think we need to go down. We'll see what others here have to say. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:58, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

What would you suggest adding to make clear that Republicans in 1998 weren't being racist in comparison to the other party? Leahy's remark is completely out of context without mentioning what happened to Estrada. And Leahy's remark from 1998 is certainly getting a lot less attention in the media now than the Estrada analogy.Ferrylodge (talk) 04:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

To give substance to what I said above, I did Google News search for Sotomayor in conjunction with: "wise Latina" 2,713 hits; "Ricci" 567 hits; "temperament" 565 hits; "judicial activism" 370 hits; "Estrada" 180 hits. There's likely a bunch of other things I could have searched for that would have finished higher than Estrada as well. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

There's a lot of stuff in the present article that would get even less hits, like that her father died when she was nine. Is there perhaps some way to find a more intelligent comment from Leahy? I know it may be difficult to find one, but surely we can look for a comment that's not pure hatred and insults. What is the purpose of the Leahy quote?Ferrylodge

Actually, her father dying gets 493 hits. And it's kinda relevant to her biography. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

And the purpose of the Leahy quote is to show that Dems were torqued off by the situation. A parallel quote about the Estrada situation definitely belongs in ... the Estrada article. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

(ec)What Leahy further said was, "What they [GOP] are saying is that they have a brilliant judge who also happens to be a woman and Hispanic, and they haven't the guts to stand up and argue publicly against her on the floor. They just want to hide in their cloakrooms and do her in quietly." So what if we drop the Leahy stupid/coward quote, and instead paraphrase: "Leahy said Republicans were using a block so that they could avoid publicly opposing a female Hispanic nominee." Wasted Time R (talk) 04:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

How about if we remove the unrebutted smears by Leahy from this article, and also remove Estrada for the time being?Ferrylodge (talk) 04:23, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

How about we leave Leahy in, and add a Republican rebuttal to it? Back in the morning. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:26, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

If the rebuttal has occurred in the last month or so, can we include it even if it doesn't get a whole lot of google news hits? I mean, Leahy's remarks from 1998 don't get a lot of hits now either.Ferrylodge (talk) 04:30, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

(od) I've added in the Leahy paraphrase on GOP motivations, as above. No, a "new" rebuttal that brings in future history (Estrada) is not appropriate. That NYT story at the time didn't have any Republican rebuttals in it that I could see, and indeed that's the whole point to an anonymous hold as used by both parties, to be able to do someone in without having to do it publicly. This Google News search from sources at the time didn't turn up much that adds anything that I could tell (this was an inside-the-Beltway story, didn't get a lot of coverage, and what coverage there was is often in editorials we can't use). Except for this curious Washington Times story, saying that in order to get the Sotomayor nom moving, Leahy put a hold on Chester J. Straub, a Clinton/Moynihan nominee!? Seems very counterintuitive and unlikely, but if true would give you the contemporaneous Leahy-is-a-hypocrite "rebuttal" you're looking for. Somebody I know may have access to the full article without paying the Moonies, will follow up this evening. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:01, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

According to this link, Leahy distinguished the racist Sotomayor obstruction from the racist Estrada obstruction on the basis that the Estrada obstruction occurred "in the light of day". Can we add something like that?Ferrylodge (talk) 14:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not interested in Estrada, since that happened well after the Sotomayor nomination process and therefore had nothing to do with it. I've now read the Washington Times story in full. The gist of it is that Leahy was annoyed that Straub -- who was more conservative than all the other judges whose nominations were being held up, but who was picked by Clinton because he had been Moynihan's campaign manager and had chaired Moynihan's judicial screening committee, and Straub was about to get unanimous consent confirmation by the Senate -- was going to get on the bench ahead of Sotomayor and gain seniority as a result. So on May 22 he either put an anonymous hold on Straub or caused a procedural delay by forcing a roll call vote when one wasn't possible (the article is a little contradictory or poorly worded on which or if both). Leahy's staffer defended the roll call by saying it was the only leverage he had, but Moynihan reportedly got steamed as you would expect. In any case Straub got confirmed about 10 days later and Sotomayor stayed in limbo, so Leahy's action didn't have any lasting effect. The article has mostly anonymous sourcing, but that was standard for its day. It also has a new and more nasty quote from Leahy on Republicans that I won't repeat, lest it disturb Ferrylodge further. But I've added this episode to the article, because it does undercut Leahy's statement about the wrongness of holds and delays. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:18, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

This Wikipedia article now implies that Leahy was accusing the GOP of opposing Sotomayor because of her race and gender: "Ranking Democratic committee member Patrick Leahy said Republicans were using a block so that they could avoid publicly opposing a female Hispanic nominee." Here's what Leahy said in 2008: "What they are saying is that they have a brilliant judge who happens to be a woman and Hispanic and they haven’t the guts to stand up and argue publicly against her on the floor. They want to hide in their cloakrooms and do her in quiet."

Leahy later elaborated about the Sotomayor nomination in 2003: "Senator Leahy was talking about anonymous holds. Judge Sotomayor was reported out of the Judiciary Committee on March 5, 1998, but anonymous Republican holds had prevented her nomination from being scheduled for a vote. On June 18, after her nomination had been pending on the floor for more than three months, Senator Leahy went to the floor to protest the anonymous hold or holds against her. Republicans refused to bring her to a vote for FOUR MORE MONTHS. Once she was finally allowed a vote, 23 Republicans voted against her, yet NONE put any statement in the record or made a statement accounting for their holds or votes."[3]

This Wikipedia article should therefore be emphasizing Leahy's complaints about anonymous holds. That was his main point, and instead this Wikipedia article is now suggesting that his main complaint was GOP racism or sexism. I'll tweak this article accordingly.Ferrylodge (talk) 10:10, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The article before your change didn't say what you think it did. It was saying that Leahy said Republicans opposed Sotomayor on ideological grounds, but were afraid of publicly voting against her because they didn't want to take the heat from voting against a female and a Hispanic. In other words, Republicans weren't racist, but were afraid of being perceived as racist. However, in fact in a different quote I found, Leahy did say that you think he did. The Washington Times article previously mentioned says: "Mr. Leahy suggested the Sotomayor nomination is dogged by discrimination. "'For some unexplained reason, judicial nominees who are women or racial or ethnic minorities seem to take the longest,' Mr. Leahy said." But it's okay with me if we don't go there. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:20, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

By the way, I've just discovered Category:Federal judicial appointment controversies in the United States contains articles on federal judicial appointment battles going back to LBJ. We should reference these as part of giving some of the history context to the Sotomayor nominations. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:32, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I've now added Bill Clinton judicial appointment controversies and George W. Bush judicial appointment controversies to the "See also" section. Sotomayor actually isn't mentioned in the former, because it only covers failed, withdrawn, and never-happened nominations, not slow-walked ones (which I think should be added). Estrada is certainly mentioned in the latter. But hopefully these will give the interested reader some understanding of the history and climate behind the appointment battles, and how's it's been going tit-for-tat for a long time. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:42, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

The First Hispanic Supreme Court Justice?

This is arguably not the case. What about Benjamin Cardozo?Balavent (talk) 15:50, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Nope, Cardozo's ancestors were Sephardic jews from Portugal, not Spain. So, the Federal Judicial Center simply calls him a white male.[4]Ferrylodge (talk) 16:44, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

With respect, I don't think you can just dismiss the question out of hand like that. The question is being discussed. Try googling "Cardozo Hispanic", for a sample.

As a recent Associated Press article on the subject stated, "Some definitions of Hispanic include Portugal and Portuguese-speaking cultures; others don't".

Also, I'm not certain that the Federal Judicial Center should necessarily be considered the final arbiter. It might be appropriate to at least qualify the assertion that Sotomayor would be the first Hispanic on the High court.Balavent (talk) 17:17, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Just FYI, this has been discussed previously here at this talk page.[5][6]Ferrylodge (talk) 18:36, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The question is covered exhaustively at Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States. The key distinction is that Cardozo himself was not even certain of his distant ancestry - his Portuguese descent was a matter of "family tradition" which he was unable to confirm, and he did not maintain Portuguese cultural practices. bd2412 T 19:23, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

To echo what others are saying, the consensus in the general media coverage and on our prior talk page discussions is that Cardoza doesn't count as first Hispanic on the court. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:03, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I went to the section on demograhics that you referred to. I've excerpted the appropriate section here:

"Benjamin Cardozo, appointed to the Court in 1932, was the first Justice of non-northern European descent. Some historians contend that Cardozo, a Sephardic Jew believed to be of distant Portuguese descent,[12] should also be counted as the first Hispanic Justice.[1] For example, Segal and Spaeth state: "Though it is often claimed that no Hispanics have served on the Court, it is not clear why Benjamin Cardozo, a Sephardic Jew of Spanish heritage, should not count". They identify a number of other sources that present conflicting views as to Cardozo's ethnicity, with one simply labeling him "Iberian". The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, widely described in media accounts as the first Hispanic nominee, drew more attention the question of Cardozo's ethnicity.[13][14][15][16] Cardozo biographer Andrew Kaufman questioned the usage of the term "hispanic" during Cardozo's lifetime, commenting: "Well, I think he regarded himself as Sephardic Jew whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula."[14] The majority view is that Cardozo was white, and thus only whites and African-Americans have ever been on the Court. It has also been asserted that Cardozo himself "confessed in 1937 that his family preserved neither the Spanish language nor Iberian cultural traditions."

I think this section reinforces my view that his Hispanic heritage is arguable. As stated above, some historians contend that he was Hispanic. Cardozo's inability to confirm "Portuguese descent" does not mean that he did not possess it, and the fact that his family didn't preserve "Spanish language nor Iberian cultural traditions", is irrelevant.

Even if one accepts that the general consensus is that Cardozo was not Hispanic, there is a real possibility that he was, and that should be reflected in the article. If we don't mention the possibility, the article will be incomplete at best, and inaccurate at worst. Balavent (talk) 05:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, knowing WP readers/editors like I do, this question won't go away, so it's probably better if the article is not silent on the matter. The article now says this in the body:

If confirmed, this would make her the Supreme Court's first Hispanic or Latino justice.[20][22][27][82][146][150][151] (Some attention has been given to Justice Benjamin Cardozo – a Sephardic Jew believed to be of distant Portuguese descent – as the first Hispanic on the court when appointed in 1932, but his roots were uncertain, the term "Hispanic" was not in use at the time, and many exclude the Portuguese from its meaning.[152][153][154])

The lead still says "its first Hispanic justice", I'm not plunging into a digression there. Is this arrangement satisfactory to everyone? Wasted Time R (talk) 12:28, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

This seems like a satisfactory resolution. Thank you. Balavent (talk) 13:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't oppose having that in a footnote. To have it in the lead itself seems to me to give undue weight to a rather tenuous proposition. bd2412 T 16:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I considered that, but I thought readers would easily miss it (especially since the assertion that she's the first Hispanic has many footnotes already) and we'd end up back here again the next time a reader protested that we weren't addressing the Cardozo question. On the other hand, I agree that fully explaining the Cardozo bit takes a fair amount of text and can be seen as undue emphasis. So I'm agreeable to either approach. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:59, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Rewrite

the early history section desprately needs a rewrite, it sounds like it was written by a five year old —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.243.73.14 (talk) 19:40, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Care to be more specific? Point to two or three sentences and say what's wrong with them. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:04, 19 June 2009 (UTC)