In that same May 2006 speech in which Judge Sotomayor quacks like a liberal judicial activist, she states that Brown v. Board of Education “struck down the separate but equal doctrine and held out a hope—still not realized, unfortunately, but still fervently aspired to[—]that we would someday be a completely integrated society.” (p. 7)

It’s unclear to me what Sotomayor means by a “completely integrated society.” As Roger Clegg’s post earlier today discusses, Sotomayor thinks it’s “deeply confused” for Americans both to “take[] pride in our ethnic diversity” and to “simultaneously insist that we can and must function and live in a race- and color-blind way.” So insofar as one vision of a “completely integrated society” would involve equal opportunity for all in a legal regime that does not discriminate on the basis of race, Sotomayor appears to reject that vision.

An alternative vision of a “completely integrated society” would look to equal results as the measure and use racial quotas and other racial preferences to achieve those results. Is that what Sotomayor means? Is there any good reason to believe that she doesn’t?