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Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see.

Sonia Sotomayor

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Sonia Sotomayor
Age: 70
Born: 1954
Born: June 25
Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Politician
University Teacher
The Bronx
New York City
Sonia Maria Sotomayor
Justice Sotomayor
Judges
Affect
Experiences
Judging
Choose
Personal
Facts

More quotes by Sonia Sotomayor

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I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale. Not so far off so that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions.
Sonia Sotomayor
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If you're poor, you don't often live near a good school. If it's a competitive public school program, our kids are not prepared to enter those programs.
Sonia Sotomayor
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You make your life choices understanding that you might and do have to work harder to prove yourself.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I don't believe we should bend the Constitution under any circumstance. It says what it says. We should do honor to it.
Sonia Sotomayor
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As members of the judiciary tasked with intervening to carry out the guarantee of equal protection, we ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society.
Sonia Sotomayor
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Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means - and in any context, whether it's judicial or otherwise - I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit to the system.
Sonia Sotomayor
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When I call myself an affirmative action baby, I'm talking about the essence of what affirmative action was when it started.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences.
Sonia Sotomayor
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Even though Article IV of the Constitution says that treaties are the 'supreme law of the land,' in most instances they're not even law.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I came to accept during my freshman year that many of the gaps in my knowledge and understanding were simply limits of class and cultural background, not lack of aptitude or application as I'd feared.
Sonia Sotomayor
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This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear.
Sonia Sotomayor
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When I'm concentrating, I can be fixed in place for hours. In fact, there was a joke in my office that everybody would come and chat outside my door because they knew - no matter how loud they talked - if I was concentrating, it would not disturb me at all.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I am growing to love DC.This [Washington] is a beautiful city. I think every citizen should come see their capital. A lot of the museums are free, there are restaurants that are reasonably priced.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me. That was its purpose: to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I come to every case with an open mind. Every case is new to me.
Sonia Sotomayor
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Don't be shy about making a teacher of any willing party who knows what he or she is doing.
Sonia Sotomayor
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I got a label because I was Hispanic and a woman and [therefore] I had to be liberal.
Sonia Sotomayor
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No matter how liberal I am, I'm still outraged by crimes of violence. Regardless of whether I can sympathize with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes, the effects are outrageous.
Sonia Sotomayor
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The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.
Sonia Sotomayor
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In every position that I've been in, there have been naysayers who don't believe I'm qualified or who don't believe I can do the work. And I feel a special responsibility to prove them wrong.
Sonia Sotomayor