Justice Sonia Sotomayor

Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the U.S. Supreme Court on August 8, 2009, replacing Justice David Souter. Sotomayor made history for being the first Hispanic and the first woman of color to reach the Supreme Court. She was born in New York City on June 25, 1954 to parents who had come to the mainland U.S. from Puerto Rico. Sotomayor graduated as the valedictorian of both her middle school and her high school. She continued her academic achievement by graduating summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976, majoring in history. In 1979, Sotomayor received her law degree from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

Over the next few years, Sotomayor worked as an assistant district attorney in New York County (Manhattan) before joining a private law firm in 1984. She also served on the State of New York Mortgage Agency and the New York City Campaign Finance Board in the late 1980s and early 1990s, among other government positions. In November 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated Sotomayor to fill a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed her for this seat in August 1992, which made her the first Hispanic judge in a federal court in New York State and the first female Puerto Rican judge in any federal court. To the delight of baseball fans across America, Sotomayor issued a ruling in 1995 that ended a Major League Baseball strike.

In June 1997, President Bill Clinton nominated Sotomayor to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which had upheld her ruling in the baseball case. Sotomayor went through her confirmation hearings in September of that year but was not approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee until March 1998. The Senate confirmed her in October. Sotomayor wrote nearly 400 majority opinions for the Second Circuit over the next decade.

Democrat President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court on June 1, 2009. She went through her confirmation hearings in July, and the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-6 in her favor on July 28. Sotomayor was confirmed by the Senate by a 68-31 vote on August 6. She took the constitutional oath of office and the judicial oath of office at a single ceremony two days later. The first case for which Sotomayor heard oral arguments was the landmark First Amendment and campaign finance case Citizens United v. FEC. A majority of the Court endorsed the free speech rights of corporations, but Sotomayor dissented.

Echoing her predecessor Souter, Sotomayor generally takes a liberal position on controversial topics. This contrasts with the other Catholic Justices on the Court. Analysts have likened her to Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. In an era when conservatives dominate the Court, Sotomayor has written some scathing dissents. Despite her service as a prosecutor, she often has advocated vigorously for the rights of suspects and defendants. Sotomayor has administered the oath of office to two vice presidents:  Joseph Biden in 2013 and Kamala Harris in 2021.