Sotomayor’s Critics Should Read Her Speech

• By Marcia Kuntz
• Special to Roll Call
• June 2, 2009, Midnight

Critics of the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court have made much of her comments in a 2001 speech at the University of California, Berkeley. In that speech, amid a discussion of the continued lack of real diversity on the bench and the crucial role that women and people of color played in groundbreaking civil rights cases, Sotomayor said: “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.”