Sonia Sotomayor

US Supreme Court justice since 2009

Sonia Maria Sotomayor (/ˈsoʊnjə ˌsoʊtoʊmaɪˈjɔːr/ ⓘ , Spanish: "Help:IPA/Spanish") ; born June 25, 1954) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States . She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and has served since August 8, 2009. She is the third woman U.S. Supreme Court justice.

Sotomayor was born in the Bronx , New York City, to Puerto Rican-born parents. Her father died when she was nine years old, and she was subsequently raised by her mother. She graduated with high honors from Princeton University in 1976 and received her Juris Doctor in 1979 from Yale Law School , where she was an editor of the _Yale Law Journal _. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for four and a half years before entering private practice in 1984. She played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund , the State of New York Mortgage Agency , and the New York City Campaign Finance Board .

President George H. W. Bush nominated Sotomayor to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1991; she was confirmed in 1992. In 1997, President Bill Clinton nominated her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit . That appointment was slowed by the Republican majority in the United States Senate because of its concerns that the position might lead to a Supreme Court nomination, but she was confirmed in 1998. On the Second Circuit, Sotomayor heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases and wrote about 380 opinions. Sotomayor has taught at the New York University School of Law and Columbia Law School .

In May 2009, President Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court following Justice David Souter 's retirement. Her nomination was confirmed by the Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68–31. While on the Court, Sotomayor has supported the informal liberal bloc of justices when they divide along the commonly perceived ideological lines. During her Supreme Court tenure, Sotomayor has been identified with concern for the rights of criminal defendants and criminal justice reform, as demonstrated in majority opinions such as _J. D. B. v. North Carolina _ and _Glossip v. Oklahoma _. She is also known for her impassioned dissents on issues of race and ethnic identity, including in _Schuette v. BAMN _, _Utah v. Strieff _, and _Trump v. Hawaii _.

Early life

Sotomayor was born in the New York City borough of the Bronx . Her father was Juan Sotomayor (c. 1921–1964), from the area of Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico ,

and her mother was Celina Báez (1927–2021),

an orphan from Santa Rosa in Lajas , a rural area on Puerto Rico's southwest coast.

The two left Puerto Rico separately, met, and married during World War II after Celina served in the Women's Army Corps .

Juan Sotomayor had a third-grade education, did not speak English, and worked as a tool and die worker ; Celina Báez worked as a telephone operator and then a practical nurse . Sonia's younger brother, Juan Sotomayor, became a physician and university professor in the Syracuse, New York , area.

Sotomayor was raised Catholic and grew up in Puerto Rican communities in the South Bronx and East Bronx ; she has called herself a "Nuyorican ". The family lived in a South Bronx tenement

before moving in 1957 to the well-maintained, racially and ethnically mixed, working-class Bronxdale Houses housing project

…

On March 30, 1995, in Silverman v. Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee, Inc., Sotomayor issued a preliminary injunction against Major League Baseball , preventing it from unilaterally implementing a new collective bargaining agreement and using replacement players . Her ruling ended the 1994 baseball strike after 232 days, the day before the new season was scheduled to begin. The Second Circuit upheld Sotomayor's decision and denied the owners' request to stay the ruling.

The decision raised her profile, won her the plaudits of baseball fans, and had a lasting effect on the game. In the preparatory phase of the case, Sotomayor told the lawyers on both sides, "I hope none of you assumed ... that my lack of knowledge of any of the intimate details of your dispute meant I was not a baseball fan. You can't grow up in the South Bronx without knowing about baseball."

In Dow Jones v. Department of Justice (1995), Sotomayor sided with the _Wall Street Journal _ in its efforts to obtain and publish a photocopy of the last note left by former Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster . She ruled that the public had "a substantial interest" in the note and enjoined the U.S. Justice Department from blocking its release.

In _New York Times Co. v. Tasini _ (1997), freelance journalists sued the New York Times Company for copyright infringement for The New York Times's inclusion in an electronic archival database (LexisNexis ) of the work of freelancers it had published. Sotomayor ruled that the publisher had the right to license the freelancers' work. This decision was reversed on appeal, and the Supreme Court upheld the reversal; two dissenters, John Paul Stevens and Stephen Breyer , took Sotomayor's position.

In _Castle Rock Entertainment, Inc. v. Carol Publishing Group _ (also in 1997), Sotomayor ruled that a book of trivia from the television program _Seinfeld _ infringed on the copyright of the show's producer and did not constitute legal fair use . The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld Sotomayor's ruling. …

For grammar school, Sotomayor attended Blessed Sacrament School in Soundview , where she was valedictorian and had a near-perfect attendance record.

Although underage, Sotomayor worked at a local retail store and a hospital. She has said that she was first inspired by the strong-willed children's book detective character Nancy Drew , but, after her diabetes diagnosis led her doctors to suggest a different career path, she was inspired by the TV series _Perry Mason _ to pursue a legal career and become a judge.

She reflected in 1998: "I was going to college and I was going to become an attorney, and I knew that when I was ten. Ten. That's no jest."

Sotomayor passed the entrance tests for and then attended Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx.

At Cardinal Spellman, she was on the forensics team (an American public-speaking competition) and was elected to the student government .

She graduated as valedictorian in 1972. Meanwhile, the Bronxdale Houses had fallen victim to increasing heroin use, crime, and the emergence of the Black Spades gang. In 1970, the family found refuge by moving to Co-op City in the Northeast Bronx.

College and law school

Sotomayor attended Princeton University . …