Posted by Ilya Somin:
My LA Times Debate With Erwin Chemerinsky over the Sotomayor Nomination:
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2009_05_24-2009_05_30.shtml#1243474018
Over the next three days, Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean of the UC Irvine Law
School, and I will be debating the Sotomayor nomination at the Los
Angeles Times blog. Our first two posts are available [1]here. They
address the following question:
Much has been made of the fact that Sonia Sotomayor would be the
first Latina justice, and sitting Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has
said she feels "lonely" as the only woman on the bench. How much,
if at all, does the ethnic and gender diversity of the Supreme
Court bench matter?
Erwin argues Sotomayor's racial and gender background will be a major
asset to the Court. In my view, the appointment of a Hispanic Supreme
Court justice is a important symbolic sign of racial progress; but
Sotomayor should be judged much more by her record on legal issues
(which I think is problematic) than by her background.
I am happy to have the opportunity to debate the nomination with such
an oustanding and prominent legal scholar. Ironically, I [2]once
defended Chemerinsky's appointment as UCI Dean when it was temporarily
rescinded due to foolish claims that he was "too liberal" to be the
dean of a major law school. However, we don't agree on too many other
issues, and it should be an interesting debate.
On Thursday and Friday, we will discuss other issues related to the
nomination.
References
1.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinionla/la-oew-chemerinsky-somin27-2009may27,0,4134639.story
2. http://volokh.com/posts/1189632168.shtml
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