MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Unwittingly Accuses Progressive Justice Sonia Sotomayor of Racism

Isaac SchorrJan 29th, 2024, 1:59 pm
 

LEFT: Chris Hayes RIGHT: Sonia Sotomayor (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes lobbed an unexpectedly harsh accusation at progressive Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Saturday.

On X (formerly Twitter), Hayes marveled at the Supreme Court’s request for West Point to hastily put together a response brief in a lawsuit aimed at stopping it from continuing to consider race in admissions decisions.

“Look how quickly courts can move when it’s the pressing issue of ‘reducing the number of black people at West Point,'” remarked Hayes about the Court’s request.

But what Hayes was apparently not aware of up to that point is that the request was made by Justice Sotomayor — who dissented in the watershed case that largely wiped out affirmative action, but notably exempted service academies last year — and she’s also the one who set the deadline.

In the hours and now days days since Hayes first unwittingly accused Sotomayor of excitedly carrying out an anti-Black agenda, his folly has been pointed out countless times.

“Justice Sotomayor requested this response. (See screenshot.) To suggest she did so out of racial animus is absurd. One might even call this smearing of the Court ‘misinformation,'” said Ohio Solicitor General Ben Flowers.

“I had never heard of this person before today. But it’s always good to identify the palpable idiots who hold themselves forth as experts. When you say “courts” you mean, as @BenFlowersOH pointed out, Justice Sotomayor,” noted University of Chicago law professor Adam Mortara.

A number of other users simply tagged X’s Community Notes team, asking it to make clear that it was Justice Sotomayor — and not the Court’s conservative majority, as Hayes sought to imply — speeding the process along.

Despite being apprised of his error, Hayes has still not corrected it.

Why? It’s hard to imagine that he hasn’t seen any of the many, many replies during the past few days informing him of it. No, what’s more likely is that the truth is just too inconvenient for him to acknowledge.

And not just because he’s made a mistake, but because he’s invested in the broader left-wing effort to delegitimize the Supreme Court.

Like most professional Democrats in the media, Hayes eschews providing any legal analysis to support his position on the West Point case because Hayes doesn’t have a position on the merits of case that’s based in the law; he has only a political position on what the case’s outcome should be. His instinct is not to provide an argument for why the petitioners in the case are wrong, it’s to impugn both their and the Court’s character.

All too often, this lazy strategy finds success because so much of the Fourth Estate approves of its practitioners’ aims.

But in this case, both it and Hayes’ stubborn refusal to correct himself have backfired amusingly, leaving observers to wonder if he actually believes Sonia Sotomayor’s ask of West Point was motivated by racial animus.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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