The president's nomination of Sonia Sotomayor looks to be an inspired one. The political world has already begun slogging her with the typical mud and innuendo, but I believe most of us can still admire another historic first we have witnessed in our lifetimes -- and the disability community can rejoice in what is an outwardly a sympathetic judicial voice!
Sotomayor has authored a pair of notable defenses of the ADA (both dissents, or losing causes). However, my favorite write-up of the day, though brief, includes this interesting insight:
She is a person with a disability: Type One diabetes, diagnosed when she was eight years old. People with diabetes are generally covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act ...
In an interview with the New York Daily News in 1998, Sotomayor said her disability shaped her career choice. People with disabilities weren't allowed to become detectives like her hero Nancy Drew, she said she was told, so she decided to become a lawyer instead.
(Source: PatriciaEBauer.com, Sotomayor nomination renews discussion of diabetes)
It's a perspective that's an interesting contrast to, say, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who provided for plenty of work accommodations due to his bad back, yet whose court could be so antagonistic to ADA accommodations beyond its own chambers.
