Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Sotomayor
Sonia Maria Sotomayoris an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. She has the distinction of being its first justice of Hispanic heritage, the first Latina, its third female justice, and its twelfth Roman Catholic justice. Sotomayor, along with John Roberts and Elena Kagan, is one of the youngest justices on the Supreme Court...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSupreme Court Justice
Date of Birth25 June 1954
CityBronx, NY
CountryUnited States of America
passive-voice use splits
Each time I see a split infinitive, an inconsistent tense structure or the unnecessary use of the passive voice, I blister.
law people tape
All of the legal defense funds out there, they're looking for people out there with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law, I know. I know.
country jobs law
Being a justice. If you love law the way I do... you're given the job of a lifetime... you're permitted to address the most important legal questions of the country, and sometimes the world. And in doing so, you make a difference in people's lives.
mom mother father
I barely saw my mother, and the mom I saw was often angry and unhappy. The mother I grew up with is not the mother I know now. It's not the mother she became after my father died, and that's been the greatest prize of my life.
responsibility justice unpredictable
It is our responsibility to explain to the public how an often unpredictable system of justice is one that serves a productive, civilized, but always evolving, society.
writing court members
I have ventured to write more intimately about my personal life than is customary for a member of the Supreme Court, and with that candor comes a measure of vulnerability.
self support temptation
I would warn any minority student today against the temptations of self-segregation: take support and comfort from your own group as you can, but don’t hide within it.
strong thinking views
When you have strong views about how to approach thinking about the law, then that view is going to lead to certain results in certain situations. And so people seem to think this predictability is based on some kind of partisan political view. But it's not.
doctors males lawyer
What's quote-unquote a 'good' lawyer, doctor, or whatever the profession is. And if you're a male who grew up professionally in a male-dominated profession, then your image of what a good lawyer is a male image.
views achievement doubt
One thing has not changed: to doubt the worth of minority students' achievement when they succeed is really only to present another face of the prejudice that would deny them a chance to even try. It is the same prejudice that insists all those destined for success must be cast from the same mold as those who have succeeded before them, a view that experience has already proven a fallacy.
wall views years
Looking out at that crowd, I imagined those who had not yet arrived, minority students who, in years to come, would make this multitude of faces, the view from where I now stood, a little more various. If they could have heard me, I would have confided in them: As you discover what strength you can draw from your community in this world from which it stands apart, look outward as well as inward. Build bridges instead of walls.
motivation trying balance
There are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action - to try to balance out those effects.
thinking judging political
The worst thing you want is a willy-nilly judge who is swayed by the political whims of the era or the time. What you want is a judge who is thinking about what he or she is doing and is thinking about it in a principled way.
party law judging
Reaching a conclusion has to start with what the parties are arguing, but examining in all situations carefully the facts as they prove them or not prove them, the record as they create it, and then making a decision that is limited to what the law says on the facts before the judge.