Sonia Sotomayor

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Sonia Sotomayor bigraphy, stories - American judge

Sonia Sotomayor : biography

June 25, 1954 –

Sonia Maria Sotomayor (, ;. For an English adaptation, see . born June 25, 1954) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. Sotomayor is the Court’s 111th justice, its first Hispanic justice, and its third female justice.

Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York City and is of Puerto Rican descent. Her father died when she was nine, and she was subsequently raised by her mother. Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976 and received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal. She was an advocate for the hiring of Latino faculty at both schools. 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.

Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991, and her nomination was confirmed in 1992. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Her nomination was slowed by the Republican majority in the United States Senate, but she was eventually 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 Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court to replace retired Justice David Souter. Her nomination was confirmed by the Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68–31. On the court, Sotomayor has been a reliable member of the liberal bloc when the justices divide along the commonly perceived ideological lines.

Other activities

Sotomayor was an adjunct professor at New York University School of Law from 1998 to 2007. There she taught trial and appellate advocacy as well as a federal appellate court seminar. She has been a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School since 1999, a paying, adjunct faculty position. There she created and has co-taught a class called the Federal Appellate Externship every semester since 2000; it combines classroom, moot court, and Second Circuit chambers work. She became a member of the Board of Trustees of Princeton University in 2006, concluding her term in 2011. In 2008, Sotomayor became a member of the Belizean Grove, an invitation-only women’s group modeled after the men’s Bohemian Grove. On June 19, 2009, Sotomayor resigned from the Belizean Grove after Republican politicians voiced concerns over the group’s membership policy.

Sotomayor has maintained a public presence since joining the federal judiciary. She has given over 180 speeches since 1993, about half of which either focused on issues of ethnicity or gender or were delivered to minority or women’s groups. Her speeches have tended to give a more defined picture of her worldview than her rulings on the bench. The themes of her speeches have often focused on ethnic identity and experience, the need for diversity, and America’s struggle with the implications of its diverse makeup. She has also presented her career achievements as an example of the success of affirmative action policies in university admissions, saying "I am the perfect affirmative action baby" in regard to her belief that her admission test scores were not comparable to those of her classmates. During 2012, Sotomayor made two appearances as herself on the children’s television program Sesame Street, explaining what a career is and demonstrating how a judge hears a case.

Sotomayor long lived in Greenwich Village in New York City and had few financial assets other than her home. She enjoys shopping, traveling, and giving gifts and helps support her mother and her mother’s husband in Florida. Regarding her short financial disclosure reports, she has said, "When you don’t have money, it’s easy. There isn’t anything there to report." As a federal judge, she is entitled to a pension equal to her full salary upon retirement. Upon joining the Supreme Court, she took up residence in Washington but sorely missed the faster-paced life of New York. After renting in the Cleveland Park neighborhood for three years, in 2012 she purchased a condominium in the U Street Corridor. She said, "I picked [that area] because it’s mixed. I walk out and I see all kinds of people, which is the environment I grew up in and the environment I love."