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Old 12-28-2009, 07:00 PM
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Default Sotomayor Draws Testy Retort

Sotomayor Draws Testy Retort From Clarence Thomas In Debut Decision


Quote:
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court's newest member, delivered the Supreme Court's first opinion of the new term. The unanimous decision was noteworthy for a couple reasons: Sotomayor used the phrase "undocumented immigrant" for the first time in the Court's history, and her opinion drew a testy concurrence from Justice Clarence Thomas.

Think Progress notes that while the pejorative term "illegal immigrant" has been used in a dozen Supreme Court decisions, Sotomayor pioneered the use of "undocumented immigrant."

And the New York Times highlights Thomas' retort to Sotomayor. Sotomayor wrote that immediate appeals of federal trial-court rulings concerning the lawyer-client privilege would cause undue delays and burden the system. Although he agreed with the ruling, he added that she had "with a sweep of the court's pen" substituted "value judgments" and "what the court thinks is a good idea" for the text of a federal law.

The Court ruled against a carpet manufacturer accused of firing an employee who exposed the hiring of undocumented immigrants. From Bloomberg:

The justices ruled against carpet manufacturer Mohawk Industries Inc. in a suit by an employee who says he was fired after telling a human resources manager that the company was employing illegal aliens. Mohawk says it fired the worker, Norman Carpenter, because an attorney-led investigation concluded that he had violated immigration laws.


The question for the court was whether Mohawk could appeal an order to provide Carpenter with documents and other information about the investigation. A trial judge said the company had waived its right to attorney-client privilege, and a federal appeals court said it lacked jurisdiction to review that ruling. The justices today upheld that decision.
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Old 12-28-2009, 07:10 PM
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For Sotomayor and Thomas, Paths Diverge at Race

First page of a three page article: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/07/us.../07affirm.html

Quote:
If Judge Sonia Sotomayor joins Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, they may find that they have far more than a job title in common.

Sonia Sotomayor was an advocate for Hispanic recruitment, and Princeton’s president consulted her on Hispanic issues.

Both come from the humblest of beginnings. Both were members of the first sizable generation of minority students at elite colleges and then Yale Law School. Both benefited from affirmative action policies.

But that is where their similarities end, and their disagreements begin. For the first time, the Supreme Court would include two minority judges, but ones who stand at opposite poles of thinking about race, identity and opportunity. Judge Sotomayor and Justice Thomas have walked parallel paths and yet arrived at contrary conclusions, not only on legal questions, but on personal ones, too.

Judge Sotomayor celebrates being Latina, calling it a reason for her success; Justice Thomas bristles at attempts to define him by race and says he has succeeded despite the obstacles it posed. Being a woman of Puerto Rican descent is rich and fulfilling, Judge Sotomayor says, while Justice Thomas calls being a black man in America a largely searing experience. Off the bench, Judge Sotomayor has helped build affirmative action programs. On the bench, Justice Thomas has argued against them with thunderous force.

The two may sit together on a court that is struggling over whether race and ethnicity should be a factor in legal thinking, each pitting his or her hard-won lessons against the other’s. Both judges are passionate about minority success, dedicating countless hours to mentorship. But Judge Sotomayor sees herself as the successful product of diversity initiatives, whereas Justice Thomas, who thinks of himself as a scarred survivor of those efforts, believes they often backfire.

The two judges have lived, not just argued, the strongest cases for and against affirmative action, said Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University. With both on the court, he said, “their voices are going to come to exemplify the contending positions.”

When Ms. Sotomayor and Mr. Thomas arrived at college — she at Princeton in 1972, he at Holy Cross in 1968 as a sophomore transfer — they worried about the same thing: what others would think when they opened their mouths.

Ms. Sotomayor had grown up in the Bronx speaking Spanish; Mr. Thomas’s relatives in Pin Point, Ga., mixed English with Gullah, a language of the coastal South. Both attended Catholic school, where they were drilled by nuns in grammar and other subjects. But at college, they realized they still sounded unpolished.

Ms. Sotomayor shut herself in her dorm room and eventually resorted to grade-school grammar textbooks to relearn her syntax. Mr. Thomas barely spoke, he said later, and majored in English literature to conquer the language.

“I just worked at it,” he said in an interview years later, “on my pronunciations, sounding out words.”

For many East Coast colleges, it was a new era. After the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Holy Cross pledged to do its part in the civil rights movement by recruiting black students; just a few months later, Mr. Thomas became one of six in his freshman class.

Princeton was integrating not only by race and ethnicity, but also by gender. Ms. Sotomayor was one of 20 Hispanics in her class, students estimate. Princeton had admitted women just a few years earlier, and “husband-hunters,” as one of the alumni still campaigning against their presence called them, were vastly outnumbered at the college.

When the students arrived, they were subject to constant suspicion that they had not earned their slots. “It was a question echoed over and over again, not only verbally but in people’s thoughts,” said Franklin Moore, a former Princeton administrator. Ms. Sotomayor and Mr. Thomas, honors students in high school, considered themselves qualified. But to prove their critics wrong, they studied with special determination.

“We can’t let these people think we just came off the street without anything to offer Princeton,” said Eneida Rosa, another member of the Hispanic contingent, describing how seriously she and Ms. Sotomayor took their studies.

The two future judges led similar student organizations — Mr. Thomas helped found a black student group, while Ms. Sotomayor was co-chairwoman of a Puerto Rican one — and shared the same liberal politics. They graduated at the top of their classes. And afterward, they each headed to Yale Law School.

Interpretations

But perhaps because of their backgrounds, Judge Sotomayor and Justice Thomas came to view their campus experiences in very different ways.

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__________________
Freibier gab's gestern

Hay burros en el maiz

RAP IS TO MUSIC WHAT ETCH-A-SKETCH IS TO ART

Don't drink and post.

"A nickel will get you on the subway, but garlic will get you a seat." - Old New York Yiddish Saying

"You can observe a lot just by watching." Yogi Berra

Old journeyman commenting on young apprentices - "Think about it, these are their old days"

SOMETIMES IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.

Never, ever, wear a bright colored shirt to a stand up comedy show.

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