Sonia Sotomayor vote was largely along party lines, with no Democrats opposing her and nine Republicans supporting her. President Obama commissioned Sotomayor on the day of her confirmation; Sotomayor was sworn in on August 8, 2009, by Chief Justice John Roberts. Sotomayor is the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court. Some attention has been given to Justice Benjamin Cardozo – a Sephardic Jew believed to be of distant Portuguese descent – as the first Hispanic on the court when appointed in 1932, but his roots were uncertain, the term "Hispanic" was not in use as an ethnic identifier at the
Hispanic-serving institution Hispanic-serving institution A Hispanic-Serving Institution, or HSI, is defined in federal law (the Higher Education Opportunity Act, Title V, 2008) as an accredited, degree-granting, public or private nonprofit institution of higher education with 25% or more total undergraduate Hispanic full-time equivalent (FTE) student enrollment. The federal definition can be found here. In the 2016-17 academic year, 492 institutions met the federal enrollment criterion. According to Title III of the Higher Education Act of 1965, in order for an HSI to receive federal funding it must satisfy the following criteria: The Department of Education offers grants to institutions defined as HSIs