ESSENCE: What do you think of Sonia Sotomayor as a Supreme Court nominee?
Anita Hill: I think it’s an excellent choice, just on the face of the selection. Here’s a person who has years of experience on the bench, and has distinguished herself in private practice as well, and has been a prosecutor.
I think she’s got an incredible breadth of experience. Clearly she’s an exceptional mind, having done very well at her undergraduate school, Princeton, and law school at Yale. But that’s just the beginning. There are other things that I think make her a great choice. ESSENCE: Georgetown professor knows what’s next for Sotomayor
ESSENCE: Things like… being a woman and a person of color?
Hill: Absolutely, that’s part of it. But I think she’s a great choice not simply because she’s a Latina. She has acknowledged that as part of her identity, in a way that I think is very responsible and wise.
She has said, “This is the perspective that I come from.” But she has also said, “I understand that perspective, but I try not to allow that to lend itself to bias.”
I like that kind of embracing of one’s own identity, but also self-reflection. It means she’s going to be aware of who she is and understand how that plays in her decision-making, but she is also going to be quite aware of the rule of law and have great respect for the rule of law, and be able to apply it.
We are enriched in the judiciary by having both those concepts in one person, and so what some people have found troubling about her I actually find refreshingly candid and self-aware.
” http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/08/what.matters.anita.hill.sotomayor/index.html