Dean Kevin Johnson Lauds Supreme Court Pick in Local, National Media
Dean Kevin R. Johnson praised President Obama's nomination of Federal Judge Sonia Sotomayor as a potential replacement for retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter in local and national media. Dean Johnson, who had argued for the benefits of appointing a Latino and specifically suggested Sotomayor as a possible nominee in an article published in The Nation on May 6, praised the nominee as extraordinarily well qualified in interviews with National Public Radio, KCBS radio, the Sacramento Bee and San Francisco Chronicle, and several other media outlets.
Dean Johnson called the pick "an amazing nomination," suggesting that President Obama had "hit the ball out of the proverbial park" by nominating Sotomayor in an article entitled "UC Davis law dean praises Obama's court pick," published in the Sacramento Bee online on May 26.
Dean Johnson also commented on the nomination for Minnesota Public Radio, praising Sotomayor's background and qualifications, which he described as including an "incredible range of experience, more judicial experience than any supreme court nominee in the past 70 years."
Commenting on the pick for an article in the National Law Journal, Dean Johnson stated that Sotomayor's "unique perspective - with a racial, class and gender background different from any other Justice ever on the Supreme Court - will likely affect the Court's deliberations and the other justices' views of the cases before the Court. It is difficult to believe, for example, that... [her] views on immigration and criminal justice will not have an influence on the Court."
In a San Francisco Chronicle article on the political impacts of Obama's nomination, Dean Johnson called the pick "path breaking," and said that for Latinos the impact was similar to what "the appointment of Thurgood Marshall was to African Americans in the 1960s."
Dean Johnson also praised the Sotomayor nomination in articles in the Contra Costa Times and Davis Enterprise, Southern California Public Radio, the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion, and in a live interview on Sacramento television station KCRA-3 (NBC). He has also written on several aspects of the nomination on his ImmigrationProf Blog.
Kevin R. Johnson is Dean and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o Studies at UC Davis School of Law. He is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of immigration law and policy, refugee law, and civil rights.
Dean Johnson on Minnesota Public Radio
San Francisco Chronicle article