Raawwwr Angry Latina Attax!: Sonia Sotomayor Wrote A Letter Calling Out Princeton As “Anti-Latino”

Back in 1974, a young (and arghghgh angry stomp stomp!) Sonia Sotomayor penned a letter to the editor of The Daily Princetonian on why she felt Princeton had demonstrated a pattern of discrimination against Latinos. Wrote Sotomayor:

The facts of the complaint are these: 1) There is not one Puerto Rican or Chicano administrator or faculty member in the university; 2) There are two million Puerto Ricans in the United States and two and a half million more on the island itself. Yet there were only 66 Puerto Rican applicants this year, and only 31 Puerto Rican students on campus. While there are 12 million Chicanos in the United States, there were only 111 Chicano applicants and 27 students on campus this year; 3) Not one permanent course in this university now deals in any notable detail with the Puerto Rican or Chicano cultures.

The lack of commitment on the part of the university to the Puerto Rican or Chicano heritage seems self-evident from these facts. Yet statistical evidence is not the total concern or complaint of the Puerto Rican or Chicano students — what is terrifying to us are the implications. The facts imply and reflect the total absence of regard, concern and respect for an entire people and their culture. In effect, they reflect an attempt — a successful attempt so far — to relegate an important cultural sector of the population to oblivion.

Not having attended Princeton nor knowing what may have factored in young Puerto Ricans and self-idnetified Chicanos choosing to apply or not to apply to the school, we can’t really comment on the implications of Sotomayor’s allegations. But we can comment on how some in the media are choosing to view her complaints as “ingratitude” on her part. 

Columnist, Newsweek Contributing Editor and Princeton graduate Stuart Taylor, Jr. wrote this about Sotomayor’s place at Princeton:

Some may see the fact that Princeton awarded Sotomayor a summa cum laude degree and the prestigious Pyne Prize when she graduated in 1976 as evidence of her unparalleled brilliance in overcoming a “total absence of regard, concern, and respect” for people such as her.

And some may see Sotomayor’s letter as evidence that she was predisposed to look for the worst, not the best, in the institution that had afforded her such opportunities. She now sits on Princeton’s Board of Trustees.

Can’t she be grateful for the opportunities offered to her (which she was able to take because of her own effort and accomplishments) and strive to make institutions she cares about and is invested in more inclusive? Why should we find ourselves in a place to label Sotomayor as someone who looks for the worst when we refuse to give her the benefit of the doubt that her motives for writing this letter was not out of negativity or narrow-mindedness on her part? Plus, who didn’t write impassioned letters to the editor while in school, back when we, like, believed in stuff?

For the record, Sotomayor also signed a letter to The Daily Princetonian condemning an anti-gay attack on campus, as well as another letter taking issue with the selection of a “minority dean.”

Letter to the Editor: Anti-Latino discrimination at Princeton (May 10, 1974) [The Princetonian]