Sonia Sotomayor Sonia Sotomayor Sonia Maria Sotomayor (; born June 25, 1954) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, appointed by President Barack Obama in May 2009 and confirmed in August 2009. She has the distinction of being its first justice of Hispanic descent and the first Latina. Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York City, to Puerto Rican-born parents. 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
Sonia Sotomayor the opening questions of the arguments to Donald Verrilli, the Solicitor General who was representing the government's position. In succeeding Justice Souter, Sotomayor had done little to change the philosophical and ideological balance of the Court. While many cases are decided unanimously or with different voting coalitions, Sotomayor has continued to be a reliable member of the liberal bloc of the court when the justices divide along the commonly perceived ideological lines. Specifically, her voting pattern and judicial philosophy has been in close agreement with that of Justices Breyer, Ginsburg and Kagan. During her first couple of years there, Sotomayor