A few hours ago — in a history-making move — President Barack Obama picked current federal appellate judge Sonia Sotomayor to be his official nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court. If passed through the Senate, the 54-year-old Sotomayor would be the third female and first Hispanic ever to serve on the highest court in the land. And while this certainly makes for a symbolic (and historic) choice, Sotomayor is no slouch either when it comes to the books.
Born from Puerto Rican parents in the Bronx, Sotomayor was her high school valedictorian and graduated from Princeton summa cum laude (while receiving the prestigious Pyne Prize). She then went to Yale Law School where she served as the editor of the Yale Law Journal. Since then she has served as a prosecutor, a trial judge and an appellate judge, running up more federal judicial experience than “any justice in 100 years, and more overall judicial experience than anyone confirmed for the Court in the past 70 years” the White House reports. As I said, no slouch.
Sotomayor now serves as a justice on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She will be replacing the recently-retired justice David H. Souter, a moderate originally picked by Bush Sr.
(Picture courtesy of the Huffington Post)
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Great pick Obama. In such a diverse nation as this, it’s great to finally see some diversity in the Supreme Court too. After all, we’ve had what? 99% SC Justices that were white and male, when they only make up something like 30% of the population. Some wack shit, that is.