McLaughlin Group further crops NY Times clip of Sotomayor's affirmative action comments

Written by Lauren Auerbach

Published

The McLaughlin Group further cropped a New York Times video clip that cropped remarks Sonia Sotomayor made regarding affirmative action.

On June 14, The McLaughlin Group aired portions of a New York Times video package that cropped remarks Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor made about affirmative action during a panel discussion with female judges in the early 1990s. The Times' cropped video featured the following remarks by Sotomayor, but omitted the portion in italics: “I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am a Puerto Rican, born and raised in the South Bronx, and from what is traditionally described as a socio-economically poor background. My test scores were not comparable to that of my colleagues at Princeton or Yale -- not so far off the mark that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions” (42:00). In addition to omitting Sotomayor's reference to her “socio-economically poor background,” The McLaughlin Group clip also omitted Sotomayor's statement that her test scores were “not so far off the mark that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions.”

As Media Matters for America previously noted, the cropping of Sotomayor's comments in this way allows conservatives like Sean Hannity to distort Sotomayor's remarks by suggesting that she said her ethnicity was the only reason she was admitted to Princeton and Yale.

From the June 14 edition of The McLaughlin Group:

JOHN McLAUGHLIN (host): Issue two: Sotomayor or Soto-Supreme? Sonia Sotomayor is a judge on the federal court of appeals in New York. President Obama nominated her late last month to the Supreme Court. Eight years ago, she gave a long lecture at Berkeley Law School in California, and said this, quote, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life,” unquote. This week, new videos surfaced in which Sotomayor describes her experience with affirmative action.

SOTOMAYOR [video clip]: I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am a Puerto Rican, born and raised in the South Bronx. ... My test scores were not comparable to that of my colleagues at Princeton or Yale.

McLAUGHLIN: Question: Does Judge Sotomayor have a problem? Especially in view of the polling that says a majority of Americans, 55 percent, want affirmative action abolished.