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Sonia Sotomayor Facts

Sonia Sotomayor Facts
Sonia Sotomayor is the first Latina Supreme Court Justice in the history of the United States. She is also only the third woman appointed as Justice. She was born Sonia Maria Sotomayor on June 25th, 1954, in the Bronx, NYC, to Juan Sotomayor, a tool and die maker, and Celina Baez, a nurse. She was very close to her grandmother. Sonia was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of seven, and when she was nine her father died. She pursued law after watching the Perry Mason television show at the age of ten. Her educational pursuits resulted in her passing the bar exam in 1980.
Interesting Sonia Sotomayor Facts:
Sonia Sotomayor attended Princeton University on full scholarship, and graduated in 1976. She received the Pyne Prize, the highest academic award at the university.
Sonia Sotomayor graduated with a law degree from Yale and passed the bar in 1980.
After passing the bar Sonia Sotomayor began to work as a Manhattan district attorney assistant. She was responsible for prosecuting a variety of cases involving assault, robbery, child pornography, and murder while serving as trial lawyer under Robert Morgenthau - the District Attorney.
Sonia Sotomayor started working in private practice in 1984. She specialized in intellectual property law at Pavia & Harcourt. By 1988 she became partner.
While working at Pavia & Harcourt Sonia Sotomayor served on several boards including the State of New York Mortgage Agency, the New York City Campaign Finance Board, and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense.
Sonia's pro bono work impressed Senator Edward Kennedy and Daniel Moynihan, who helped her gain attention to be nominated by President George H.W. Bush for the position of U.S. District Court Judge, which she was appointed to in 1992.
Sonia Sotomayor and confirmed as U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals in 1997 after being nominated by President Bill Clinton.
In 1998 Sonia Sotomayor also started teaching at New York University, and a year later she began teaching at Columbia Law School.
Sonia Sotomayor was awarded honorary law degrees from Brooklyn Law School, Princeton University, and from Herbert H. Lehman College.
U.S. President Barack Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor for the position of Supreme Court Justice on May 26th, 2009, which was confirmed by the Senate in August.
Sonia Sotomayor became the first Latina Supreme Court Justice and the third female Supreme Court Justice on August 6th, 2009 with a vote of 68-31. She was sworn in on August 8th 2009.
Sonia Sotomayor wrote a memoir about her journey to the Supreme Court, titled My Beloved World.
One of the most well-known decisions Sonia Sotomayor made while serving in the U.S. District Court was issuing an injunction against the owners of Major League Baseball teams in 1995, which ended the player stroke.
In 2015 Sonia Sotomayor helped to make it difficult to undo the Affordable Care Act by helping to uphold a critical component of the act with her arguments and vote.
Sonia Sotomayor voted on the ruling that made same-sex marriages legal in all 50 states on June 26th, 2015, along with four other Justices.


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