As Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions lectures Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor on the importance of color-blind justice, bear in mind that Mr. Sessions would now be a federal judge himself if his own nomination had not been rejected in 1986 due to his history of racist comments.
As detailed in a 2002 article in The New Republic, testimony at his confirmation hearing included a report that Mr. Sessions had once said he thought the Klan was OK until he learned that some of them were pot smokers. A black assistant U.S. attorney in his office testified that Mr. Sessions addressed him as “boy” and told him to be careful how he talked to white folks. Another Justice Department lawyer testified that Mr. Sessions has referred to a white lawyer who had litigated voters’ rights cases as a “disgrace to his race.” In his own testimony, Mr. Sessions characterized the NAACP as an un-American organization.
In the end, the Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee voted against confirmation.
So, when Mr. Sessions questions Ms. Sotomayor’s commitment to the equality of all people before the law, don’t forget Mr. Sessions’ own record on the subject.
Jeff Maloney
Kansas City
Two generations have worked selflessly to realize a society that judges individuals on merit and protects the civil rights of all. Yet now we find another privileged standard applied to Sonia Sotomayor, based solely on her gender and who her parents were.
I think it fair to dissent from any antiquated government policy that promotes a new aristocratic class based on criteria so superficial.
Sam Gill
Kansas City
Thank you for publishing the picture of Judge Sonia Sotomoyor conferring with her mother (7/14, A1).
It explains the unease with which we who were born to some semblance of privilege view her nomination to the Supreme Court. It represents the obvious influence of the Wise Latina Feminist Manifesto Movement.
Susan J. Brandt
Kansas City