Racial Talk in the Academy - Sotomayor fits right in.

Ann Althouse observes that racist talk and attitudes pervade the universities.

We nurture racial analysis. We create a school of thought and hire people to write about Critical Race Theory. What Sotomayor said was actually a weak, feel-good version of the kind of racial talk that is widespread in the legal academy.

And ... I should add, in the media, in mainline churches, and wherever Liberals talk to each other.

Althouse suggests

Still, those who want law to be color-blind have an fine opportunity to play off that quote. Whether calling Sotomayor a "racist" is the best rhetoric is another matter. I would recommend characterizing Sotomayor's thinking as "racial" (rather than racist). And lets have a real debate about whether law and public policy should have a racial or a color-blind character. It's an important issue, and it can be used to define Obama in contrast to whatever 2012 candidates the Republican Party may produce.

Based on what the Republican Party has become, I'm not sure that this will any longer be an issue.

Outside of the putrid Ivory Tower the "proles" comment ...

"We nurture racial analysis... What Sotomayor said was actually a weak, feel-good version of the kind of racial talk that is widespread in the legal academy."

So, law school is just a big racist grievance factory? Good to know.

View from the right makes the point that we should not let this pass as a mere "teachable moment."

Any white man who had said the equivalent of what Judge Sotomayor said, that he as a white man would be a better judge than a black or a Hispanic, would have had his name automatically removed from any list for the U.S. Supreme Court.

And if such a man had been nominated, and such a statement in his past had then come out, his nomination would have been instantly withdrawn.

Therefore Sonia Sotomayor is disqualified from the U.S. Supreme Court and her nomination must be withdrawn.

If the Democrats approve her nomination, they are saying that there are two sets of rules in America, one for whites and one for nonwhites, and that what is prohibited to whites, is freely allowed to nonwhites. Which means that the real purpose of the movement for racial equality and racial inclusion in this country has not been the ending of racial discrimination, but the inauguration of a pro-nonwhite, anti-white regime.

At Althouse Richard Fagin remarks ...

Some introspection is long overdue, professor. You shouldn't sympathetically smile and nod at such things. They are bigotry in every sense of the word, and whether or not they are understandable they are not justifiable.

From that famous lecture in 2001, Sotomayor postulates ...

Whatever the reasons why we may have different perspectives, either as some theorists suggest because of our cultural experiences or as others postulate because we have basic differences in logic and reasoning, are in many respects a small part of a larger practical question we as women and minority judges in society in general must address.

and ...

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.

We have a judge getting ready to ascend to the Supreme Court who has the same ideas about the thinking ability of various racial groups as the racists of the 19th century. How pleasant.