WASHINGTON AND NEW YORK — When Sonia Sotomayor goes before the Senate next month for her Supreme Court confirmation hearing, the questioning is likely to focus on her work as a civil rights advocate in the 1980s as much as on her nearly two decades on the federal bench.
That is because she was a board member of a Puerto Rican advocacy group that sued to overturn New York City's civil service exams and to win more police and firefighter jobs for Latinos.
Sotomayor embraced affirmative action and later described herself as leading an "attack" on testing and promotional exams that favored whites and limited the opportunities for minorities.
Twenty-five years later, as a high court nominee, she is being criticized for a ruling that threw out a suit by white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who had earned top scores on a department exam but were passed over for promotion.
As a result, her hearings promise to revive a decades-old debate about the role of race and ethnicity in hiring decisions, and the use of quotas to achieve diversity.
It is a thread that has run through much of Sotomayor's life -- beginning with her admission to Princeton University and Yale Law School, where she excelled.
"I am a product of affirmative action," Sotomayor said in a 1994 interview. "I am the perfect affirmative action baby."
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Targeting exams
As a lawyer in the 1980s, before being appointed to a federal judgeship, Sotomayor sat on the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, a New York-based group modeled after a similar unit established by the NAACP.
The fund sought to "use the law to create opportunities for Latinos," said Cesar Perales, co-founder and president of the group, now called LatinoJustice PRLDEF. "We think the law can ensure a level playing field."
While Sotomayor sat on the board, the fund moved beyond traditional civil rights cases and began to address what she called "economic problems" -- wage disparities and housing discrimination. A major target became civil service exams that the fund argued had a negative effect on Latinos and other minorities. It filed separate suits against New York City's police, fire and sanitation departments.
In 1984, while Sotomayor was on the board, the fund alleged on behalf of a group of Latino police officers that a sergeant's exam violated federal law because minorities did poorly on the test and its questions were not related to being an effective police supervisor. Fewer than 80% of the test takers were white, but the results indicated they would get 95% of the promotions.
