Justice Sotomayor Laments Supreme Court’s Right Turn: ‘Every Loss Truly Traumatizes Me’
Justice Sonia Sotomayor lamented the Supreme Court’s increasingly partisan turn to the Right and opened up about the “frustration” she feels when she votes in the minority.
Speaking at a forum at the University of California Berkeley School of Law on Monday (in remarks reported by CNN) Sotomayor revealed day-to-day toll that losing cases take on her.
“I live in frustration,” Sotomayor said. She added, “Every loss truly traumatizes me in my stomach and in my heart. But I have to get up the next morning and keep on fighting.”
CNN reports the dean of the school noted that Cal Berkeley law students “increasingly feel discouraged” by the Supreme Court.
“How can you look at those people and say that you’re entitled to despair?” Sotomayor replied. “You’re not. I’m not. Change never happens on its own. Change happens because people care about moving the arc of the universe toward justice, and it can take time and it can take frustration.”
Sotomayor has written some scathing minority opinions expressing her dissatisfaction. In one case last term in which the Court sided with a web designer who refused to promote gay weddings, Sotomayor wrote, “The immediate, symbolic effect of the decision is to mark gays and lesbians for second-class status.”
However, Sotomayor has spoken glowingly about her conservative colleagues. She has repeatedly praised embattled Justice Clarence Thomas, and at Monday night’s event, talked about regularly passing notes with Justice Neil Gorsuch.
