LaRaza, ACORN, and now the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund...yet another mestizo rights group troubles Sotomayor confirmation
Cesar Perales has fought his share of critics over the years, inlegal battles for minorities denied jobs, bilingual classes in schoolsand more Latino police officers. But none of those efforts compareswith the tempest his Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund has stirred because of the dozen years that Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor served as one of its board members.
Conservativeshave called the group’s stances against capital punishment and forabortion rights, as well as its advocacy of affirmative action inworker discrimination cases, “extreme” and “shocking.” Some havesuggested Sotomayor’s longtime association with the group is anindication that she is biased and would be unable to render impartialdecisions as a Supreme Court justice.
The critiques leading up to next week’s Senate hearings onSotomayor’s confirmation have stunned Perales, who calls them anattempt to derail her nomination by over-politicizing the work of hislegal defense fund.
“You have a reputable group that has stood up for the civil rightsof Latinos for 37 years,” said Perales, the group’s president. “Tosuddenly be accused of being something bad, and that anyone associatedwith it should not be allowed to serve on the Supreme Court, to me is shocking.”
Peralesfounded the fund, now known as LatinoJustice PRLDEF, in a Manhattanoffice building in 1972, He modeled it after one of the mosthigh-profile civil rights organizations in the country, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund.