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Sonia Sotomayor rose to the apex of fame when President Obama appointed her to become the nation’s first Hispanic woman Supreme Court justice. She’d replace retiring justice David Souter.
Obama also praised her saying that she was an “inspiring woman” with both the intellect and compassion to interpret the Consitution wisely.
Obama said that Sonia Sotomayor has more experience than other current member of the high court when she was nominated making her the clear choice for the position.
Sotomayor was born to Puerto Rican parents and was raised in Bronx. Her father wasn’t much educated and died when she was 9. Her mother raised Sonia and her younger brother Juan who is now a doctor.
Sonia says that it was her mother who was her life’s inspiration. Sotomayor completed her Undergraduation from Princeton University and her J.D from Yale Law School. she got married in 1976 while still studying at Princeton and got divorced in 1983.
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Abortion
In?Center for Reproductive Law and Policy v. Bush,??Sotomayor upheld the Bush administration’s implementation of the “Mexico City Policy” which requires foreign organizations receiving U.S. funds to “neither perform nor actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other nations”. Sotomayor held that the policy did not constitute a violation of?equal protection, as the government “is free to favor the anti-abortion position over the pro-choice position, and can do so with public funds”.
Employment Discrimination
Sotomayor was a member of the Second Circuit panel in a high-profile case that held that the City of New Haven could throw out its promotional test for firefighters and start over with a new test, because the City believed the test had a “disparate impact” on minority firefighters and it might therefore be subject to a lawsuit from minority firefighters if it certified the test results, because none of the high scorers was a minority. Instead, white firefighters sued the City, claiming that their rights were violated because the test was thrown out.??The case was recently heard by the U.S. Supreme Court as?Ricci v. DeStefano,?and a ruling has not yet been issued.