Sotomayor, Sonia

Education and Career Beginnings

Sotomayor was born in Bronx, New York, on June 25, 1954, to Puerto Rican immigrant parents, Juan Sotomayor and Celina Baez Sotomayor. Spanish was her first language. She lived in the Bronx housing projects, was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 8 years, and mourned the death of her father at age 9 years. Raised as a Catholic, she attended highly regarded Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx, where she was active in student government, participated on the forensics team, and graduated as valedictorian of her class.

Sotomayor earned her B.A. summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, she also won the M. Taylor Pyne Prize-the top honor that Princeton awards undergraduate students. Entering Yale Law School in the fall of 1976, Sotomayor distinguished herself as an editor of the Yale Law Journal and also as managing editor of the student-sponsored journal Yale Studies in World Public Order. She was granted her J.D. in 1979 and was admitted to the New York Bar the following year. Sotomayor married Kevin Noonan in 1976; the couple divorced in 1983. They had no children.

During her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Sotomayor was repeatedly called to explain a remark that she made in a 2001 lecture she delivered at the University of California-Berkeley. In that address, she spoke about the ways in which gender and national origin might make a difference in how judges rule. She quoted a comment, attributed to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, that “a wise old man and a wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases” and then referenced herself, remarking that although she might not fully agree with the statement, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a [Page 1378]better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.” Sotomayor's comments were criticized as evidence of liberal, racially biased attitudes that she might bring to bear on the Supreme Court. She took great care to distance herself from the remark and others like it, asserting, “I do not believe that any ethnic, racial or gender group has an advantage in sound judgment.” The “wise Latina” statement was merely “a rhetorical flourish that fell flat,” she argued, and she assured her detractors that she would rule based on the law, not on racial bias.

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