Another Shameful Judicial Selection

One of the greatest perks of being the President is getting to select judges for the federal court system, including the Supreme Court. It is the responsibility of the President to select judges who will not be partial or use their particular views to interpret the law, after all, justice is supposed to be equal to all, without regard for race, gender, background, etc.

But the appointments made by President Obama have been less than impartial, beginning with Justice Sonia Sotomayor. During a speech at the University of California at Berkeley, Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

In a case that came before Judge Sotomayor earlier this year, she and two other judges ruled that a group of white firefighters could not receive the promotions they had earned because no black firefighters had passed the standardized exams. The promotion exams were closely focused on firefighting methods, knowledge and skills. The first part had 200 multiple-choice questions and counted for 60 percent of the final score. Candidates returned another day to take an oral exam in which they described responses to various scenarios, which counted for 40 percent.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court where Sotomayor’s ruling was overturned and the City of New Haven was required to promote the firefighters.

Now President Obama has nominated Edward Chen to sit on the bench at the Northern California Federal District Court. Mr. Chen promises to rule in line with the far left’s version of a quality judge and has already proven to use race and “life experiences” rather than law to dispense justice.

Chen worked for the ACLU as an activist lawyer between 1979 and 2001, during which he opposed English-only policies and for pushing discriminatory affirmative action ideals, even coming to the aid of gang members during a particular case.

Mr. Chen has a self described lack of American patriotism and has repeatedly stated that he finds racism and discrimination almost everywhere he looks.

Upon hearing “America the Beautiful” at a funeral, Chen commented, "feelings of ambivalence and cynicism when confronted with appeals to patriotism — sometimes I cannot help but feel that there are too much [sic] injustice and too many inequalities that prevent far too many Americans from enjoying the beauty extolled in that anthem."

When the attacks of 9/11 happened, Chen’s first thoughts were not of concern for the victims or a sense of anger over the attacks, instead only ten days after the attacks Chen remarked that he imagined that America would revert to the "irresistible forces of racism, nativism and scapegoating" of the past and begin systematic oppression of American Muslims.

When asked about the role of judges he said, "Simply put, a judge's life experiences affect the willingness to credit testimony or understand the human impact of legal rules upon which the judge must decide. These determinations require a judge to draw upon something that is not found in the case reports that line the walls of our chambers. Rather judges draw upon the breadth and depth of their own life experience.... Inevitably, one's ethnic and racial background contributes to those life experiences."

In effect, he parallels what Justice Sotomayor believes, that judges must include more than law to reach their decisions.

These beliefs will inevitably create unequal justice in our society and place so many at an unjustified disadvantage. If laws are not applied blindly, without regard for race, gender, ethnicity or background, then the result can not be called justice, but rather a travesty.

President Obama once again exposes his naiveté by selecting judges who have displayed bias while on the bench and who are not qualified to sit in judgment of others.