{"id":18398,"date":"2018-01-12T14:50:31","date_gmt":"2018-01-12T19:50:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/?p=18398"},"modified":"2018-01-12T14:50:31","modified_gmt":"2018-01-12T19:50:31","slug":"supreme-court-justice-sotomayor-inspires-during-clemson-visit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/supreme-court-justice-sotomayor-inspires-during-clemson-visit\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor inspires during Clemson visit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sonia<\/a>
\nWhen Sonia Sotomayor came to Clemson on Sept. 14, President Clements noted that it was the first time a sitting justice of the U.S. Supreme Court had spoken on campus.
\nBut Justice Sotomayor made sure there was very little sitting. She moved through the packed house of more than 900 members of the University community, stopping several times to organize group photos as she candidly answered questions submitted in advance by students.
\nVernon Burton, professor of history and director of the Clemson CyberInstitute, introduced Sotomayor as \u201cnot only my friend, but a true American hero.\u201d The two have known each other since their days at Princeton University, where Sotomayor was once his research assistant.
\nSotomayor spent an hour answering questions while weaving in personal anecdotes, inspiration and advice. Philosophy major Chiodera \u201cChiChi\u201d Drayton-Smith asked Sotomayor what parts of her journey to becoming a Supreme Court justice were unexpected. Sotomayor responded that every turn was unexpected.
\nSotomayor, who has served on the U.S. Supreme Court since 2009, grew up in public housing in the Bronx, New York. As a child, she never dreamed of being a lawyer or a judge, much less a Supreme Court justice. \u201cTo dream about something you don\u2019t know is impossible,\u201d she said.
\nSotomayor went from the Bronx to Princeton, where she won the university\u2019s highest academic honor. She attended law school at Yale and was editor of its law journal. After graduation, Sotomayor worked in the public and private sector, serving as an assistant district attorney in New York and was a partner at the law firm Pavia & Harcourt.
\nShe was appointed to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, then served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit before President Barack Obama nominated her as an associate justice of the Supreme Court in 2009.
\nHaley McKay, who is studying women\u2019s leadership and communication and minoring in Spanish, wanted to know Sotomayor\u2019s philosophy on leadership.
\n[pullquote]\u201cFind the best in people, and appeal to that,\u201d Sotomayor said. \u201cMake people you are working with give you their best. Challenge them to be the best person they can be. Once you do that, they can rise to your expectations.\u201d[\/pullquote]
\nStudents were clearly taken by Sotomayor\u2019s dynamic talk. \u201cAs a Latina, to see someone like me presented on this campus, that\u2019s so important to see,\u201d said Amanda Arroyo, a graduate student in the department of history. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to see someone that\u2019s made it so far,\u201d she said.
\nSotomayor closed her appearance by talking about the difference between law and justice. William Powell, a student in modern languages, had asked what young people should know about the field of law.
\n\u201cLet me start with what the law is not. It\u2019s not about moral justice,\u201d Sotomayor said. \u201cOne person\u2019s justice is another person\u2019s injustice.\u201d In her field, there must be a steadfast belief in the rule of law, and Sotomayor has faith in the system she\u2019s chosen.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re not God. As judges, you can\u2019t ask us to play God,\u201d she said. \u201cLaws are made by people. They can be changed by people.\u201d
\nSotomayor\u2019s visit was sponsored by the President\u2019s Forum on Inclusive Excellence in partnership with the Humanities Advancement board of the College of Architecture, Arts and Humanities.
\nView the full event:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Sonia Sotomayor came to Clemson on Sept. 14, President Clements noted that it was the first time a sitting justice of the U.S. Supreme Court had spoken on campus. But Justice Sotomayor made sure there was very little sitting. She moved through the packed house of more than 900 members of the University community, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":18404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[994,2658,2885,3317,3324],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-18398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-these-hills","tag-diversity","tag-sotomayor","tag-supreme-court","tag-winter-2018","tag-winter-2018-in-these-hills"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2018\/01\/Justice-Sonia-Sotomayor.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18398"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clemson.world\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=18398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}