The majority says Yes!

Even though the “Senate has affirmed that Judge Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation’s highest court, ” says Obama, there are a number of people who don’t think so – all Republican. It’s not helpful to set up a Democratic/Republican split – and yet if there weren’t so many Democrats in office, one wonders if she would have been elected.  People tune out with these labels and don’t inquire or hear the reasons why a yes or no vote is cast. I found it fascinating to read WHY the Republicans voted the way they did – yes AND no reasons are equally enlightening.

How Republicans Voted For Sotomayor check out the comments to the right of the voting record.

I find it ironic that those who said no did so because they didn’t believe she could uphold the letter of the law and the constitution and/or would try to legislate from the bench – And yet some who said yes did so because they believed the exact opposite.

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, who voted yes, cited how valuable this process has been – “requiring us to return to inquiring deeply about the qualifications of the nominees and accepting the consequences.”

As with any leader, time will tell how accurate all these assessments are – and it goes to show you two people can be given the same facts, hear the same answers and interpret them in a polar opposite fashion drawing very different conclusions. While the law and this position aspire one to be as objective as possible in decision-making, is being COMPLETELY bias-free a POSSIBLE reality or an ASPIRATION that we can never stop striving for? We only have ourselves to keep each other in check.

Copyright 2009 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC         www.sagelead.com

Wow.   Anyone who thinks we, as a country, have resolved our history with race relations, think again. Could it be that we ALL have a sensitivity to our inheritance – a long history of racial bias and abuse – regardless of the progress we have made in recent years or if we are on the “white” or “black” side? And we each have our own unique bundle of biases and hot buttons based on our personal history. Some say it’s ALWAYS about race. Some say it’s NOT always about race.

President Obama, our executive leadership, was “quick” to react and label the incident “stupid” – racial profiling – and just as “quick” to apologize when others, namely the Cambridge Police Department, got insulted. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ”overreacted” after a long trip and perhaps “felt accosted, wrongly accused” in his own home. “Should” he have just let it go and gone to unpack? Officer Sargeant James Crowley “overreacted” and decided to arrest Mr. Gates after his “tirade”. “Should” he have just let it go and chalked it up to Mr. Gates being tired and oversensitive?

Could all these perspectives be true….? …. AND it is clear that race is still a not-yet healed wound all too ready to surface spiralling out of control and causing unintended repurcussions. We can be human. Temperance and wisdom go out the window when it hits home.

As a white female, I never really understood what it felt like to be a minority by skin color until, as a young adult, I lived in Kingston, Jamaica, the West Indies, a country with many shades of skin tones – not many of them white. Then I got it at a different level of understanding.

I say, sometimes it IS about race and sometimes it is NOT about race. Can both be true? Enough said. Go have a beer.

Copyright 2009 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC            www.sagelead.com

Ms. Sotomayor, the Supreme Court Justice nominee, and women in leadership, are lightening rods for expressing our collective hopes and fears about potential biases regarding race or gender effecting just decisions.

What wrong with Obama’s criteria for this position? Can’t we have someone who has a “rigorous intellect” AND recognizes the limits of the judicial role …someone who can apply the law with a sense of “understanding how the world works and how ordinary people live?” Every great leader knows they have to work concerns across different constituencies and apply judgment with an understanding of what is going to work “in the real world.” To me, this is blending head and heart in an integrated way – which is what the complexity of our times calls for.

It’s no news that we need more women and minority leadership everywhere, and especially in our highest courts in the U.S., to better reflect the diversity of this country. The fact that Obama’s choice manifests itself as a hispanic woman … matters and doesn’t matter.

It matters at the first level of selection – a hispanic woman – because otherwise there would already have been someone in the role with her race and gender. At the next level, it better not matter. Beyond these first level of differences from the majority, she needs to exercise the kind of complex, fair judgment required for the job. As with any ceo jobs, the assessment process needs to make sure the best qualified candidate is selected, REGARDLESS of race and gender. So, yes we are dealing with complexity and paradox.

To paraphrase Cristina Rodríguez, a professor at N.Y.U. Law School and a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the “critical evaluation of her long record as a judge and her judicial philosophy and views on the issues the Court will face in coming years” are ultimately what matter in this assessement process.

Copyright 2009 Sage Leadership Strategies, LLC       www.sagelead.com