Ben Smith adds some valuable context to an episode from Sotomayor's time at Princeton that Michael Goldfarb has been trying to spin as an example of her radical past:
Sotomayor was initially slow to join the Puerto Rican campus group, Accion Puertorriqueno, classmates recalled; when she did join, she took it over, and led the filing of a complaint in 1974 with the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare alleging a "lack of commitment" to a federally mandated minority recruitment goals. She's pictured in that April 22's Princetonian looking soberly at the camera from behind big glasses, beside her counterpart from the Chicano Organization of Princeton.
But while the lawsuit may look in retrospect like a confrontational tactic, it was seen at the time as the path of accommodation, recalled Schubert and another Hispanic student leader, who asked that his name not be used because of his current position.
"Sonia was a voice of reason," recalled the other student leader. "There were Hispanics who felt that we shouldn't be in dialogue with the administration - we ought to be telling them to take a hike."
--Jason Zengerle