Group Sotomayor Belonged to Sued Over Job Tests

The White House delivers a huge portfolio of Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor's writings, speeches and rulings to the Judiciary Committee offices on Capitol Hill in Washington Thursday, June 4, 2009.

(Alex Brandon/AP Photo)

A civil rights group advised by Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in the 1980s brought several discrimination lawsuits that sought to scrap the results of job tests because too few Hispanics scored well, according to new documents that are fueling GOP criticism of the judge.

The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund represented Hispanic sanitation workers in New York City who wanted to stop white employees from getting promotions because, they argued, the qualifying exam unfairly disadvantaged minorities. The case unfolded as Sotomayor chaired the organization's board of directors' litigation committee, although there is no evidence that she had any role in the group's decision to participate in the lawsuits, or in formulating or drafting any of their legal arguments.

Still, the case bears strong similarities to a much-discussed case Sotomayor ruled on last year as a federal appeals court judge, which involved the reverse discrimination claims of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who sued after the city threw out its promotion test because too few minorities qualified. A panel she joined ruled against the white firefighters in the case, Ricci v. DeStefano. The Supreme Court reversed the decision last Monday.

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The sanitation workers' case and similar ones — including a series of lawsuits against the New York City Police Department that ultimately resulted in the department consulting with a PRLDEF expert in drafting its job tests — are detailed in hundreds of pages of new material the group sent the Senate Judiciary Committee on Friday. The documents were placed on the committee's web site.

The job discrimination suits, which are a staple of most minority legal advocacy groups' work, have drawn outrage from Republicans who allege they prove that Sotomayor has endorsed an agenda of reverse discrimination and racial preferences for minorities.

Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, the senior Republican on the Judiciary panel, said this week that the Puerto Rican defense group has taken "extreme positions," and his office branded the organization "activist" in a background memo it released on Friday. His aides had accused Sotomayor's allies of withholding the documents to prevent a thorough investigation of her past before confirmation hearings begin July 13.