Legal Commentary

A Fighter

By Big Tent Democrat

Via Jason Zengerle, here's an anecdote from Judge Sonia Sotomayor's law school days that demonstrates her fighting spirit:

A large Washington law firm-Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge-has been forced to apologize to a Yale Law School senior after a student-faculty tribunal found one of its partners had asked her "discriminatory" questions focusing on her being a Puerto Rican. . . . The questions, according to the tribunal, included: 'Do law firms do a disservice by hiring minority students who the firms know do not have the necessary credentials and will then fire in three to four years? Would I have been admitted to the law school if I were not a Puerto Rican? Was I culturally deprived?" . . . Krall asked the questions of Sonia Sotomayor de Noonan, a resident of the Bronx, N.Y., who had graduated from Princeton before going to Yale Law, during a dinner in New Haven Oct. 2 with several other Yale students.

Sotomayor had the courage to stare down these racist questioners. Not an easy thing to do, especially when you are in your last year of law school.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on May 27, 2009 (boomark / email).