Sonia Sotomayor (1954- ) The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009 after leadership as an assistant district attorney, in private practice, and across a distinguished judicial career. She is the third woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court and the first Hispanic and Latina Justice in the Court’s 230 years.
Justice Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, New York to working-class parents. She and her family lived in a low-income housing project and experienced financial hardship, but Sotomayor’s mother placed great emphasis on the importance of education—and it paid off. Justice Sotomayor went on to earn a B.A. from Princeton University in 1976, graduatingsumma cum laude. In 1979, she earned a J.D. from Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
She thereafter served as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she was an associate and then partner from 1984–1992. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. She then served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998–2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009.
During her tenure on the Supreme Court, Sotomayor has been identified with concern for the rights of defendants, calls for reform of the criminal justice system, and making impassioned dissents on issues of race, gender, and ethnic identity. A recipient of the Katherine Hepburn Award from Bryn Mawr College honoring women who change the world, Sotomayor has also received multiple honorary degrees.
