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After accusing Cambridge, Massachusetts, police of acting “stupidly” in the disorderly conduct arrest of his friend, Harvard Professor Henry Gates, President Obama today said the incident highlights the urgency of confirming Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court before the Senate’s August recess.
“This situation affirms Judge Sotomayor’s Latina wisdom in the Ricci v. Destephano case,” said the president, referring to her appeals court ruling against firefighters whose successful promotion exam performance was invalidated because no black firefighters passed the test.
“If a black officer had confronted Skip Gates trying to jigger into a house, Skip would not have become belligerent, and so he would not have been arrested. Putting Sotomayor on the High Court, will put the Cambridge Police Department on notice about being more culturally sensitive in their hiring practices.”
According to the police report, Gates initially refused to show identification to an officer who had responded to a 911 call about a potential burglary, then the Harvard scholar repeatedly shouted allegations of racism at police.
Obama noted with some satisfaction that Gates, “the nation’s pre-eminent African-American scholar, even in crisis, had the presence of mind to draw upon his rich storehouse of cultural literacy. When the officer said he would speak with him outside, Gates said, ‘Ya, I’ll speak with your mama outside.'”
The president praised Gates’ wit and intellectual firepower, while re-affirming his accusation that the police “acted stupidly.”
“With Sonia Sotomayor tilting the balance on the court,” he said, “some day police departments nationwide will be staffed with officers who know a Harvard intellectual when they see one breaking into a house. To paraphrase Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I have a dream that one day a man will not be judged by his apparently illegal actions, but by the color of his skin and the content of his curriculum vitae.”
Examiner columnist Scott Ott is editor in chief of ScrappleFace.com, the family-friendly news satire site.
