School Rulings by Sotomayor Eyed Carefully

During her 17 years on the federal bench, Judge Sonia Sotomayor has handled a relatively small number of cases dealing directly with K-12 education. But those disputes—touching on such issues as racial discrimination, special education, and student freedom of expression—offer clues to the direction she might take on school matters if she joins the U.S. Supreme Court.

Consider the following decisions from the high court nominee’s time on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York City, where she has served since 1998.

In Gant v. Wallingford Board of Education (1999), Judge Sotomayor wrote a partial dissent from two fellow judges in a case alleging racial discrimination involving a black student in a Connecticut elementary school. Although she agreed with the panel’s rejection of a claim that the school had acted with “deliberate indifference” to racial hostility the student allegedly encountered at school, she concluded that the student’s family had grounds for proceeding with a claim that their son’s midyear demotion from 1st grade to kindergarten...