Bench & Bar March/April 2025

COLUMNS

U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE SONIA

SOTOMAYOR AWARDED HIGHEST HONOR FROM

The University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law presented the Brandeis Medal to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Feb. 5, during a reception at Louisville’s Marriott Hotel Downtown. The Brandeis Medal, awarded annually since 1983, honors a recipient chosen for their devotion to economic, social or polit ical justice and for advancing the cause of public service in the legal profession. Soto mayor, an alum of Princeton University and Yale Law School, is the seventh Supreme Court justice honored with the medal, fol lowing Harry Blackmun, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, Sandra Day O’Connor and John Paul Stevens. “We selected Justice Sotomayor to receive the Brandeis Medal because she brings tremendous dignity, respect and compas sion to the bench. She is a fierce defender of liberty," said Dean of Louis D. Brandeis School of Law Melanie B. Jacobs. "Every stu dent who is in this room who was at the law school today and got to interact with Justice Sotomayor is nodding and thinking of the way in which she touched them. UOFL BRANDEIS SCHOOL OF LAW “

” - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor If you start from the proposition that most people have good in them, it’s easier to find common ground.

THE “PEOPLE’S JUSTICE” Appointed by Barack Obama in August 2009, Sotomayor became the first Hispanic and third woman to serve on the high court. Aptly, Sotomayor was introduced at the Brandeis event by Enid Trucios-Haynes, the first Hispanic law professor at UofL, and like Sotomayor, a native New Yorker from the Bronx. Trucios-Haynes said Sotomayor has served as a personal mentor and role model for the marginalized, underserved and dis advantaged in her 15 years on the bench, writing impassioned rulings and dissents on issues of race, gender and ethnic identity. Sometimes dubbed “the people’s justice,” Sotomayor is known for decisions such as

legalizing same-sex marriage and upholding the Affordable Care Act, as well as her con cern for the rights of criminal defendants and criminal justice reform. In providing greetings from the Common wealth of Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear said the Supreme Court holds “a sacred duty to rule without bias or favor to any person or party.” The justices of the Supreme Court are “the very foundation of a functional system of government, one that’s designed to serve the people and not just the powerful.” UofL President Kim Schatzel welcomed Sotomayor who then participated in a ques tion-and-answer session with Jacobs.

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