Justice Sonia Sotomayor once said a Latina judge would make a different ruling than a white man
Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked the judge overseeing a lawsuit regarding Trump University for having a "Mexican heritage," a dismissal that many critics on both the right and left have said is racist. But in 2001, before President Obama appointed her as a Supreme Court justice, then-appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor might have even agreed with Trump's point.
During a speech at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, Sotomayor dismissed an opinion held by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor that "a wise old man and wise old woman" would reach the same conclusion when deciding a case. Sotomayor further complicated this by saying she believes race might also factor into what one decides in a ruling:
Sotomayor specifically appears to be speaking about empathy, but there's no doubt her words might fall a little bit awkwardly right now.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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