Hispanic Heritage Month Figure: Sonia Sotomayor

Hispanic Heritage Month takes place from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15 and was created to teach the public about the importance and achievements of Hispanic-Americans. Every year students are taught about the same figures ranging from Frida Kahlo, Jennifer Lopez and others. And while these are all important, influential figures in history, it would be nice to hear about different ones.

One of these less talked about figures is Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor is a current Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court and has been since 2009 when she was appointed by Barack Obama. She was born in the Bronx to two Puerto Rican native parents and after earning the title of valedictorian she went on to attend Princeton University and Yale Law School. After obtaining her law degree she went on to serve as a district attorney in New York and was later appointed for the first time by Bush to work for the Southern District of New York. Since this landmark in her career in 1992, she continued to move up the ranks until being appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court as the first Hispanic justice.

In most of the cases that Sotomayor argued and voted for, she stood on the side of liberals and defended first amendment rights. She ruled in the majority for multiple cases defending the rights of citizens including the upholding of the Affordable Care Act and in Obergefell v. Hodges.