Sonia Sotomayor supported the informal liberal bloc of justices when they divide along the commonly perceived ideological lines. 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, including "Schuette v. BAMN," "Utah v. Strieff", and "Trump v. Hawaii". Sonia Maria Sotomayor was born in the New York City borough of The Bronx. Her father was Juan Sotomayor (born c. 1921), from the area of Santurce, San Juan, Puerto Rico, and her mother was
Sonia Sotomayor Trowbridge for suggesting during a recruiting dinner that she was at Yale only via affirmative action. Sotomayor refused to be interviewed by the firm further and filed her complaint with a faculty–student tribunal, which ruled in her favor. Her action triggered a campus-wide debate, and news of the firm's subsequent December 1978 apology made the "Washington Post". In 1979, Sotomayor was awarded a J.D. from Yale Law School. She was admitted to the New York Bar the following year. On the recommendation of Cabranes, Sotomayor was hired out of law school as an assistant district attorney under New York County