My favourite advantage about being white and male is that no-one makes assumptions about my opinions on any given issue. Perhaps this right should be extended to other groups. Ms Eisenstein made too many assumptions about how Ms Sotomayor's identity might affect her judgements. Ms Eisenstein is no better than the shock jocks that she smugly attacked.

My reading - from many thousands of miles away - of some objections to the confirmation of Ms Sotomayor is that, as a justice on the highest court in the land, her decision making process will not be shaped by a respect for the law but rather by her ethnic background and her gender.
Some would say that these are legitimate sources to draw on in judicial interpretation - many disagree.
By comparing her ability to judge based on her gender and ethnicity to others' ability to judge based on theirs Ms Sotomayor herself raised the gender and race issue.
Justice is said to be blind - many wish it were more so.