Posted by David Kopel:
Highly Dubious Claim against Sotomayor
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_05_24-2009_05_30.shtml#1243364874
Something (to which I will not link) has appeared on the Internet,
which purports to describe Sonia Sotomayor's work at Princeton:
Sotomayor is a graduate from Princeton University, where her legal
theses included Race in the American Classroom, and Undying
Injustice: American "Exceptionalism" and Permanent Bigotry, and
Deadly Obsession: American Gun Culture. In this text, the student
Sotomayor explained that the Second Amendment to the Constitution
did not actually afford individual citizens the right to bear arms,
but only duly conferred organizations, like the military. Instead
of making guns illegal, she argues that they have been illegal for
individuals to own since the passing of the Bill of Rights.
There is no reason to believe this is true. The purported source is
"American News Inc." The link to this alleged news source is dead. In
a quick Internet search, I found no such organization.
Further, the text of the article is self-refuting. An undergraduate at
an Ivy League school, including Princeton, would write only one
thesis. (Perhaps two if she were an exceptionally hard-working double
major.) It would be unheard of for a student to write more than three,
as the article claims she did. Nor would anyone who actually knew what
a Princeton thesis was describe it as a "legal" thesis.
Moreover, Sotomayor was intelligent enough to graduate from Yale Law
School Summa Cum Laude. It is inconceivable that someone of such
intelligence (or even of modest intelligence) could have written a
thesis asserting that the Second Amendment actually outlawed gun
ownership outside of the militia.
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