Potential Supreme Court Nominee Sotomayor May Face Criticism For Comments On Gender, Ethnicity

Article here. Excerpt:

'In her 2001 speech, delivered at the Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California-Berkeley, Sotomayor questioned the notion that male and female judges would reach similar conclusions when deciding cases, though she also "sounded many cautionary notes," the Times reports. Sotomayor said, "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." Sotomayor also said that the increasing diversity in federal courts "will have an effect on the development of the law and on judging." She said that being a woman or a minority can affect a judge's perspective because of "experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences."'