Sonia Sotomayor is a wonderful role model. Truly. Through hard work,
brains and rare self-discipline at an early age, she was able to
overcome poverty and family dysfunction to become what she is today. She
was diagnosed at the age of 7 with Type 1 diabetes, and because her
father was an alcoholic and her mother a full-time nurse, it fell to her
to manage the daily insulin injections and testing that are part of the
required treatment. The image, in her memoir, of a small girl dragging a
chair to the stove so she could sterilize her syringes before school is
poignant indeed.
Any person attempting to overcome hardship can look to Sotomayor for
inspiration. But as she demonstrated in her long, impassioned dissent in
the case of Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, the
experience of benefiting from race preferences has left her prickly and
defensive on the subject. As others, including her Supreme Court
colleague Justice Clarence Thomas, have argued, that kind of gnawing
insecurity is one of the consequences of preferences. Others are never
sure if you've achieved your position entirely on merit, and neither are
you.
Sotomayor's argument rests entirely on a fallacy -- that lowering
admission standards for certain minority applicants is the only possible
response to concerns about racial and ethnic disparities in American
life. "Race matters," she scolded again and again in her dissent.
Actually, she went further and argued that a Michigan constitutional
amendment that explicitly forbids racial discrimination amounts to
racial discrimination.
Continued here at Townhall.com: http://townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2014/04/25/what-race-preferences-hide-n1828942/page/full
Mona Charen Profile Update: http://www.zoreks.com/mona-charen.html
