Perhaps it’s a sign of progress.
In a role reversal of sorts, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is being asked to defend her membership in a private club for women.
Usually, though not always, it’s men who are on the defensive about same-sex clubs, as was Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Sonia Sotomayor
At his confirmation hearings, senators asked Alito about his membership in an all-male eating club while he was a Princeton University undergraduate.
Ironically, Sotomayor’s club, The Belizean Grove, was created as a kind of alternative of to the Bohemian Club. That all-male group has included U.S. presidents and other high-ranking government officials.
Senate Republicans raised the issue of Sotomayor’s association with the Belizean Grove recently.
They asked her to explain why she believes “that membership in an organization that discriminates on the basis of sex nonetheless conforms to the Code of Judicial Conduct.”
In a letter Monday to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sotomayor, who is a federal appeals court judge, defended her membership.
“The organization does not invidiously discriminate on the basis of sex,” she wrote. “Men are involved in its activities - they participate in trips, host events and speak at functions - but to the best of my knowledge, a man has never asked to be considered for membership.”
According to Politico, the key word in Sotomayor’s response is “invidiously,” which means doing something in a manner that causes resentment.
“The American Bar Association’s judicial codes state that it is inappropriate for judges to belong to groups that ‘invidiously’ discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion or national origin,” Politico writes.
In Sotomayor’s defense, her supporters have noted that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is a member of International Women’s Forum, an all-female group.
And former Justice Sandra Day O’Connor has been or is a member of women’s groups, including the National Association of Women Judges and the Arizona Women Lawyers’ Association. O’Connor defended her membership in female-only groups at her confirmation hearings.
Sotomayor joined Belizean Grove last year. According to an overview on its website, the club, which is based in New York, was founded nearly 10 years ago by Susan Schiffer Stautberg and 25 other women.
A former television journalist, Stautberg is president of PartnerCom Corporation and the former director of communications for the U.S. Product Safety Commission.
The Belizean Grove’s mission statement calls the group, “a constellation of influential women who are key decision makers in the profit, non-profit and social sectors.”
There are approximately 115 members, the club’s overview states.
The group includes, or has included, Gen. Ann E. Dunwoody, the first woman to become a four-star general in the U.S. military, Pernille Spiers-Lopez, the president of IKEA North America and Lorna Wendt, the founder of the former Equality in Marriage Institute.
Members of the group gather annually, sometimes in the Central American country of Belize.
The 137-year old Bohemian Club has a three-week gathering every year at the 2,700-acre Bohemian Grove north of San Francisco.
Its members have included Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.
In 1981, the club was ordered by a California state commission to begin hiring women to work at Bohemian Grove. The case did not address the club’s not having women members.
Note: Sotomayor resigned from the Belizean Grove on June 18, 2009.
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