Have a heart, Sotomayor!

If you follow the news at all, you likely have heard (here) that the U.S. Supreme overturned one of S.Ct. nominee Sonia Sotomayor's lower court decisions this week. But the more interesting and timely aspect of this story to me (rather than the wins/losses or victor/smack-down angle) is how it reflects Sotomayor's summary and un-serious treatment of a very serious and complex issue.

Given that Judge Sonia Sotomayor's most exceptional quality is supposedly her ability to empathize, this week's affirmative action decision in Ricci v. DeStefano is ironic. Sotomayor's endorsement of a one-paragraph 2nd Circuit opinion in the matter wasn't very sympathetic.

Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg was careful to note how she had resisted her feelings in considering this case,

The white firefighters who studied for the exam "understandably attract the court's empathy," Justice Ginsburg said in summarizing the dissent from the bench. But, she added, "they had no vested right to promotion."

It is a fair (not to mention complex) question whether there is a right to be promoted if you qualify for a promotion in every respect except for the color of your skin. And I commend the "living Constitution"/jurisprudentially Liberal dissenters on our Supreme Court for their effort to rationalize their political view of racial preferences. But Sotomayor, and the other two judges on the panel who dismissively refused to consider this case at the Circuit Court level, didn't even go to that trouble. Apparently her motivation to go the extra mile is limited to certain types of petitioners.

Come on Judge Sotomayor, have a heart!