Prof. Gurulé Reflects on Sotomayor Confirmation
Notre Dame Professor of Law Jimmy Gurulé reflects on the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor by the United States Senate to serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. Gurulé is a prominent member of the Hispanic legal community, having served as President of the Hispanic National Bar Association in 1989 and received the Graciela Olivarez Award in 2006. He also serves as the faculty advisor to the Hispanic Law Student Association, and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Hispanic Alliance for Progress and Notre Dame Institute for Latino Studies. He was selected as one of the “100 Most Influential Hispanics” by Hispanic Business in 2002, 1990, 1989, and 1987. For more on Gurulé, click on this link.
On Thursday, August 6, 2009, the United States Senate confirmed Judge Sonia Sotomayor as the 111th justice and the first Hispanic to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition to becoming the first Hispanic to serve on our nation’s highest court, Sotomayor will be the third female justice in U.S. history.
I first became aware of Sonia Sotomayor in 1990, when I served as President of the Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA). The top priority of the HNBA was to strive for a more diverse federal bench. At the time, there were few women and even fewer people of color on the federal judiciary. In the 12 federal regional circuits, there were only one or two Hispanics sitting on the federal circuit court of appeals. In the 94 U.S. judicial districts, the number of Hispanics on the federal district court was only slightly higher. With so few Hispanics on the federal judiciary, the thought of an Hispanic serving on the U.S. Supreme Court was a distant dream.
As President of the HNBA, I scheduled meetings at the White House and met with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee to draw attention to the importance of a diverse judiciary. The HNBA leadership met with Senator Orrin Hatch, then Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Governor John H. Sununu, President George H.W. Bush’s Chief of Staff, and C. Boyden Gray, former White House Counsel, and advocated for the nomination of Hispanic lawyers to the federal bench. Sonia Sotomayor’s name, along with many others, was raised at those meetings as a possible judicial candidate.
The following year, in 1991, the efforts of the HNBA were rewarded when Sonia Sotomayor was nominated by President Bush to serve as a federal district court judge, and again when she was appointed by President Clinton to the federal circuit court of appeals. And today, what was merely a dream almost 20 years ago has become a reality.
After Judge Sotomayor was confirmed as the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court, Mari Carmen Aponte, the first female president of the HNBA, stated, “This is a dream come true. I never imagined that a Hispanic woman lawyer of my generation would live to see this day.” While I share Mari Carmen’s sentiments and great pride, Sonia Sotomayor’s quintessential American journey is a tremendous inspiration, not only to Hispanic lawyers, but to all lawyers across the country.
