I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
University of New Mexico Law Professor Laura Gomez had a provocative commentary published in this past weekend’s edition of USA Today. Her commentary ran with this headline: “Another proud affirmative action baby.”
Gomez’s multi-layered reflections on the subjects of ethnicity and gender are especially welcome today. Go no further than the critique of Sotomayor woven into the opening remarks of several members of the Senate Judiciary Committee — that our ethnicity or gender, among the many other moving parts that forge identity, shouldn’t be allowed to inform a judge’s perspective. It must be boxed up somehow.
Each member of the committee who pursued that line of criticism just happened to be a white male. Of course, many other white male senators on the committee made no such comments. Aside from two white women on the committee, the rest of the 19-member committee is entirely made up of white men.
That’s where Gomez comes in. While the Senate and it’s committee may never be candidates for affirmative action, Gomez once was.
Like Sotomayor, her own story of stellar accomplishment began in Albuquerque’s public schools — then to the Ivy League, a prestigious clerkship for a federal appellate court judge, teaching law at UCLA , and now teaching law at UNM. And she has no problem conceding that affirmative action programs opened doors for her — doors that she walked through.
Of course, not everyone walks through doors that are opened for them.
Gomez writes, ”I’ve described myself as ‘an affirmative action baby’ many times over the years. Depending on the audience I was addressing, I’ve meant to send a variety of messages with this statement.”
One of those messages:
I’ve used the phrase to critique meritocracy, calling into question the validity of quantitative tests as accurate measures of one’s past accomplishments or one’s future potential (such as the suitability of the test at issue in the promotion of firefighters in New Haven, Conn.).
I imagine many who deal with high-stakes standardized tests can relate. I also imagine we’ll be hearing more about those firefighters in the days ahead.
As for Sotomayor, U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, probably said it best today.
“Unless you have a complete meltdown, you’re gonna get confirmed.”
