Women in History-Sonia Sotomayor Traditional Cache

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 that August. She has the distinction of being its first Hispanic and Latina Justice.

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 she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for four-and-a-half years before entering private practice in 1984. She played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board.