Justice Sonia Sotomayor to Deliver Address at Undergraduate Commencement
Born and raised in the Bronx, Justice Sotomayor is the first sitting Supreme Court justice to speak at Manhattan College.
Sonia Sotomayor, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, will deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree at Manhattan College’s Undergraduate Commencement on Friday, May 17.
Justice Sotomayor was born in the Bronx to Puerto Rican-born parents, and later attended Cardinal Spellman High School. A first-generation college student, she received her bachelor’s degree and graduated summa cum laude in 1976 from Princeton. In 1979, she graduated from Yale Law School, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.
Justice Sotomayor served as assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she served as an associate and then partner from 1984–1992.
In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. She served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998–2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an associate justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009.
The Manhattan College website has complete information on the 2019 Undergraduate Commencement, including a full schedule of events.