Highly Dubious Claim against Sotomayor:

Something (to which I will not link) has appeared on the Internet, which purports to describe Sonia Sotomayor’s work at Princeton:

Sotomayor is a graduate from Princeton University, where her legal theses included Race in the American Classroom, and Undying Injustice: American “Exceptionalism” and Permanent Bigotry, and Deadly Obsession: American Gun Culture. In this text, the student Sotomayor explained that the Second Amendment to the Constitution did not actually afford individual citizens the right to bear arms, but only duly conferred organizations, like the military. Instead of making guns illegal, she argues that they have been illegal for individuals to own since the passing of the Bill of Rights.

There is no reason to believe this is true. The purported source is “American News Inc.” The link to this alleged news source is dead. In a quick Internet search, I found no such organization.


Further, the text of the article is self-refuting. An undergraduate at an Ivy League school, including Princeton, would write only one thesis. (Perhaps two if she were an exceptionally hard-working double major.) It would be unheard of for a student to write more than three, as the article claims she did. Nor would anyone who actually knew what a Princeton thesis was describe it as a “legal” thesis.

Moreover, Sotomayor was intelligent enough to graduate from Yale Law School Princeton Summa Cum Laude. It is inconceivable that someone of such intelligence (or even of modest intelligence) could have written a thesis asserting that the Second Amendment actually outlawed gun ownership outside of the militia.


Updated update: Commenters explain that Princeton students write two junior papers and one senior paper; only the latter is called a “thesis.” Other commenters point out that her senior thesis was about the Puerto Rican politician Luis Munoz Marin. The blog which created this item has a small tag on the article which says “satire.” Although all of the commenters on that blog seem to have taken the article seriously, as has every other cite to it on the web. People who want to read satire on the web would be better off with Iowahawk, which can be recognized as satire because it is sometimes funny.

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