Confirmation hearings begin today for Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor. Widely expected to be confirmed due to a stong Democratic majority, the media and political gadflies have been atwitter about her being the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice. Or would she be?
Although there is room for some dispute, it seems a strong case has been and continues to be made that the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice served over 75 years ago, and was appointed by: Herbert Hoover. His name? Nathan Cardozo.
As a backgrounder, the sources of the controversy include: 1. How is Hispanic defined? 2. What did Cardozo consider as his culture and heritage? 3. When did Hispanic come into common usage as a descriptor of a population segment? and 4. Who will get political credit for the appointment of the first Hispanic in a nation charged with identity politics?
In the spirit of a 'little blog,' I will not dissect each of those four points as it takes too much time. Suffice it to say that there is much credible testimony to indicate Cardozo was the first Hispanic Justice. I find it interesting that Wikipedia is a significant arbiter of this issue, at least for the laymen. Ever since Sotomayor's announcement (May 26, 2009), the 'edit history' for Cardozo's Wikipedia entry has been extremely active - over 175 changes in the 5 weeks following Sotomayor's appointment - nearly all on the issue of Cardozo's heritage. This issue is an obvious example for why we in academia strongly discourage our students from using Wikipedia as their means of research - it is not subject to a non-biased editorial and review process. Truth comes by majority vote at Wikipedia - in these post-modern times, sadly, most people don't care about that.
What about the political hay to be made? Certainly, the Hispanic bloc commands a great presence as a voting bloc. I'm certain that the primary purpose of this effort at historical revisionism is to be able to make the claim: "Obama appointed the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice" on future political ads in 2012. It's just FAR TOO BORING and FAR TOO POLITICALLY INCORRECT to say that Herbert Hoover - an evil Republican (that's sarcasm, BTW) - accomplished this nearly 80 years ago.
Me? I don't care so much. Not about race, gender, eye color, etc. I just want these lifetime appointees to know and understand the Constitution. Mark Davis said it best last week (paraphrased) when he pointed out that the classic statue of 'Lady Justice' (pictured here) is a judge who is BLINDFOLDED. How FAR we have come from a concept of blind justice!
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