Which Sotomayor will show up?

There’s a superabundance of coverage and analysis on Judge Sonia Sotomayor coming from all angles and possible forms of media. Some are more interesting than others. Like…

This one from the LA Times starts from the premise that she can be ‘read’ both ways, activist judge or activist person who leaves her strong feelings outside court deliberations. And it backs up the claim with plenty of background, from an early age. Then…

From Princeton onward, a look at her life has shown, she has viewed the law as a tool for social empowerment.

But critics of Sotomayor’s Supreme Court nomination fear that as a justice she would take that concern too far, siding with the underdog as a matter of principle rather than on the basis of cleareyed legal judgment.

“It is perfectly appropriate for people to bring their life experience to their judging,” said John C. Eastman, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas who now serves as dean of the Chapman University School of Law in Orange. “But there’s a difference between having that perspective and being able to put one thumb on the scale to benefit one group over another.”

Others say

little of that activist sentiment is revealed in the hundreds of cases Sotomayor has decided in her 11 years on the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, raising the question of which jurist will present herself if she is given the lifetime tenure and complete independence of a Supreme Court seat.

Scrutiny of her some of her appeals cases has convinced some legal experts she doesn’t discriminate.

“This is a judge who does not see it as her job to fix all the social ills in the world,” said Kevin Russell, a Washington appellate lawyer who also has analyzed Sotomayor’s opinions.

But in her 1974 letter to the student newspaper, Sotomayor complained that the university had no faculty members of Puerto Rican or Mexican descent. The incoming freshman class that year numbered 1,141. Of those, 36 were Latino. The inequities she felt she confronted there cut her deeply, friends said.

In her junior year, Princeton tapped Sotomayor to serve on a student committee that advised the administration on replacing an outgoing dean dedicated to minority issues.

But she grew disillusioned with the assignment. She objected that her committee had little power to influence the selection. In a 1974 article in the Daily Princetonian, Sotomayor was quoted as saying: “We were token students, period. The decision was made without consulting us.

“What we in effect want is for the school to realize we’re not here to play patsies, we’re not a front.”

Is this a signal for concern? Could be. The confirmation hearings will be interesting.