As the Sotomayor hearings proceed, I thought I would turn again to the issues raised by the judge’s oft-cited “wise Latina” speech and similar remarks suggesting that there may be a connection between judicial decision-making and a judge’s ethnicity and background.

One common approach is to wonder whether this is “racist.” Shortly after the nomination was announced, I did a segment with Joy Cardin on Wisconsin Republican Radio. She seemed perplexed that I refused to assume the “racism” position, playing a clip of Tom Tancredo making that charge as if it to tell me that I wasn’t a team player.

But I think it is unfair to say that she was making a claim for some form of racial superiority.

Another common approach is to say that she was simply suggesting that judges need to be aware of the biases that arise from their backgrounds so that they can check them, and that a panel consisting of persons with different backgrounds will be more likely to, collectively, identify and deal with these biases.

I think that Judge Sotomayor almost certainly believes this, and I agree that there is a great deal of truth in it, although I may be less likely to believe that gender or ethnicity implies common histories and assumptions.

The reason that the debate has not — and should not — end with the second approach is that it is — literally — not what she said, both in the La Raza article and on other occasions.