Randall Newsome 2nd Article!!

Students and Faculty Rally behind Supreme Court Nominee
By Randall Newsome

Texas Southern University students and faculty reacted positively to President Obama’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to serve as a new Supreme Court Justice in spite of criticism from some who called her a racist and a radical.
“It’s more about her background than her race,” said senior journalism major Holly Smith.
When Sotomayor was nominated people started to talk about a speech she gave back in 2001 at the University of California Berkley involving ethnicity and sex affecting a judge’s decisions when deciding cases.
“I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life,” said Judge Sotomayor during the speech at University of California at Berkeley.
TSU’s students and faculty of Hispanic descent were outraged that some were calling her comments racist. They said that her speech was taken completely out of context.
Thurgood Marshall School of Law Associated Dean and Professor Fernando Colon-Navarro, who specializes in Constitutional Law, was very passionate about the message he felt that Sotomayor was trying to get across.
“Who we are and what we bring to the table determines our effectiveness. That’s all she meant,” said Colon-Navarro.

Sotomayor’s speech at University of California at Berkley, along with a few others surfaced and led to her nomination being questioned and looked down upon by some conservatives and political media.
“She needs to be more careful about what she says,” said ROTC Cadet Luis Santiago.
On the other hand, constitutional scholars who analyzed her message were able to understand her main points and the direction she was going in.
“The real spirit of what she was trying to say was that her life experience will help her judge fairly,” said Associate Dean and Professor of Constitutional Law L. Darnell Weeden.
Despite heavy media controversy, students and faculty alike have given a reaction very much in favor of Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court.