# Sonia Sotomayor *Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since 2009* Sonia Maria Sotomayor, born June 25, 1954, is an American jurist who sits on the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] as an associate justice. President Barack Obama put her name forward on May 26, 2009, and she took her seat on August 8, 2009. She is the third woman to serve on the Court.[^1][^2] Before joining the federal bench, Sotomayor spent four and a half years as an assistant district attorney in New York and entered private practice in 1984. President George H. W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1991, and the Senate confirmed her in 1992. President Bill Clinton named her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1997. The Senate's Republican majority held up that nomination over concern that the seat could position her for a Supreme Court appointment, and she was confirmed in 1998.[^1] Obama chose her in May 2009 to fill the seat of retiring Justice [[David Souter]]. The [[United States Senate]] confirmed her that August, 68 votes to 31.[^1] ## Early life Sotomayor was born in the Bronx to parents who had each left Puerto Rico. Her father, Juan Sotomayor (c. 1921–1964), came from the Santurce area of San Juan. He had a third-grade education and worked as a tool and die worker. Her mother, Celina Báez (1927–2021), came from Lajas on the island's southwest coast. She had served in the Women's Army Corps during World War II and later worked as a telephone operator and then as a practical nurse.[^3] In 1957 the family moved from a South Bronx tenement to the Bronxdale Houses project in Soundview. Sotomayor was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age seven. Her father died of heart problems at 42, when she was nine, and her mother raised her from then on.[^3][^1] She graduated from Princeton University with high honors in 1976. She earned her Juris Doctor at Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor of the *Yale Law Journal*.[^1] ## Early legal career Sotomayor began work in 1979 as an assistant district attorney under New York County District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. In the trial division she prosecuted shoplifting, prostitution, robbery, assault and murder cases, and she also worked on police brutality cases.[^4] After four and a half years she moved to private practice in 1984. She also served on the boards of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board.[^1] ## Federal district judge In 1991 Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat, recommended Sotomayor for a judgeship. He did so under an arrangement with fellow New York senator Al D'Amato, a Republican, that let Moynihan choose roughly one in four of the state's district court nominees while a Republican held the presidency. D'Amato backed her nomination.[^5] Bush nominated her on November 27, 1991, to the Southern District seat that John M. Walker Jr. had vacated. In June 1992 the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had a Democratic majority, approved her unanimously, and Senator [[Ted Kennedy]] praised her pro bono work. A Republican senator then held her nomination, along with three others, in response to an unrelated hold that Democrats had placed on another nominee. After D'Amato objected, the hold was lifted some weeks later, and she was confirmed in 1992.[^5][^1] ## Court of Appeals judge Clinton's nomination of Sotomayor, dated June 25, 1997, was to the Second Circuit seat left open by J. Daniel Mahoney. The American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary rated her "well qualified".[^6] The [[New York Times]] wrote that the nomination became "embroiled in the sometimes tortured judicial politics of the Senate." Some members of the Republican majority believed that Clinton wanted to appoint the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice and that an easy appellate confirmation would help her toward that seat. The majority therefore slowed her confirmation.[^6] At her Judiciary Committee hearing in September 1997, some Republican members questioned her on mandatory sentencing, gay rights, and her regard for Justice [[Clarence Thomas]]. The committee approved her in March 1998, with two members dissenting. In June 1998 a *Wall Street Journal* editorial asserted that the administration meant to "get her on to the Second Circuit, then elevate her to the Supreme Court as soon as an opening occurs." The editorial criticized two of her district court rulings and urged further delay. She was confirmed later in 1998.[^6][^1] During her time on the Second Circuit, she took part in appeals in more than 3,000 cases and wrote about 380 opinions.[^1] ## Supreme Court justice ### Nomination and confirmation After the 2008 presidential election, New York Senators Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand wrote to Obama. They urged him to name either Sotomayor or Interior Secretary Ken Salazar if a Supreme Court vacancy arose.[^7] The White House first approached Sotomayor about a possible nomination on April 27, 2009. News of Souter's planned retirement reached the press on April 30. Obama told her of his decision on May 25 and announced the nomination the following day. With that nomination she became the second jurist ever to be named to three different judicial posts by three different presidents.[^7] The Senate vote in August 2009 was 68–31.[^1] ### Tenure Wikipedia's account places Sotomayor with the Court's informal liberal bloc when the justices split along commonly perceived ideological lines. It associates her with the rights of criminal defendants and with criminal justice reform, and it cites her majority opinions in *J. D. B. v. North Carolina* and *Glossip v. Oklahoma*. The same account lists her dissents on race and ethnic identity in *Schuette v. BAMN*, *Utah v. Strieff* and *Trump v. Hawaii*.[^1] ## Other activities Sotomayor taught trial and appellate advocacy and a federal appellate court seminar at New York University School of Law as an adjunct professor from 1998 to 2007. From 1999 she held a paid adjunct post as lecturer in law at Columbia Law School. Beginning in 2000 she co-taught the Federal Appellate Externship there, which combined classroom work, moot court and work in Second Circuit chambers.[^8] She sat on Princeton University's Board of Trustees from 2006 to 2011. She joined the Belizean Grove, an invitation-only women's group, in 2008. She left the group on June 19, 2009, after Republican politicians raised objections to its membership policy.[^8] Between 1993 and 2009 she gave more than 180 speeches. About half of them either addressed ethnicity or gender or were given to minority or women's groups. She has described her own career as an example of the success of [[Affirmative action]] policies in university admissions. As a justice she has given commencement addresses at New York University (2012), Yale University (2013) and the University of Puerto Rico (2014).[^8] ## Personal life Sotomayor married on August 14, 1976, shortly after graduating from Princeton, at a chapel in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. The couple divorced in 1983.[^9] ## Awards and honors Sotomayor has received honorary law degrees from institutions including Lehman College (1999), Princeton University (2001), Howard University (2010), New York University (2012) and Yale University (2013). The American Philosophical Society elected her a member in 2002. She received Princeton's Woodrow Wilson Award in 2013.[^10] The Bronxdale Houses development where she grew up was renamed in her honor in June 2010. The Justice Sonia Sotomayor Houses and community center comprise 28 buildings with about 3,500 residents. A public high school complex in Los Angeles, the Sonia M. Sotomayor Learning Academies, took her name in 2011.[^10] In 2013 the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery unveiled a painting of her with [[Sandra Day O'Connor]], [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]] and [[Elena Kagan]]. She received the Katharine Hepburn medal from Bryn Mawr College in May 2015. She was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 2019 and received the Radcliffe Medal from the Harvard Radcliffe Institute in 2024.[^10] ## Publications Sotomayor's memoir *My Beloved World* was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2013. Her later books, published by Penguin Random House or its Philomel imprint, include *Turning Pages: My Life Story* (2018), *The Beloved World of Sonia Sotomayor* (2019), *Just Ask! Be Different, Be Brave, Be You* (2019) and *Just Help! How to Build a Better World* (2022).[^11] Her articles include *Statehood and the Equal Footing Doctrine: The Case for Puerto Rican Seabed Rights*, published in the *Yale Law Journal* in 1979. She also wrote *A Tribute to Justice Scalia*, published in the same journal in 2017.[^11] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, lead section (revision 1376904972, retrieved 2026-10-26) — birth date, nomination and service dates, judicial appointments, confirmation vote, Second Circuit caseload, education and tenure summary. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor [^2]: Supreme Court Historical Society, *Sonia Sotomayor (2009–present)* — record of her service as associate justice since 2009. https://supremecourthistory.org/associate-justices/sonia-sotomayor-2009-present/ [^3]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, "Early life" section (revision 1376904972) — parents, family move to the Bronxdale Houses in 1957, diabetes diagnosis, father's death. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor [^4]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, "Early legal career" section (revision 1376904972) — 1979 hiring by the New York County District Attorney's office and the cases she prosecuted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor [^5]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, "Federal district judge" section (revision 1376904972) — Moynihan recommendation, November 27, 1991 nomination, June 1992 committee approval, and the Senate hold. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor [^6]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, "Court of Appeals judge" section (revision 1376904972) — June 25, 1997 nomination, ABA rating, Republican delay, September 1997 hearing, March 1998 committee vote, and the June 1998 editorial. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor [^7]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, "Supreme Court justice" section (revision 1376904972) — the Schumer–Gillibrand letter and the April 27, April 30, May 25 and May 26, 2009 dates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor [^8]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, "Other activities" section (revision 1376904972) — teaching posts, Princeton trusteeship, Belizean Grove membership and resignation, and speech counts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor [^9]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, "Personal life" section (revision 1376904972) — 1976 marriage and 1983 divorce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor [^10]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, "Awards and honors" section (revision 1376904972) — honorary degrees, memberships, awards, and namings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor [^11]: Wikipedia, *Sonia Sotomayor*, "Publications" section (revision 1376904972) — books and articles with publishers and years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Sotomayor