Sonia Maria Sotomayor is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, nominated by President Barack Obama in 2009. She made history as the first Hispanic and Latina Justice. Raised in a Puerto Rican family in a Bronx housing project, Sotomayor frequently relies on her lived experiences to inform her jurisprudence, acting as the Court’s most vocal champion for criminal justice reform, minority rights, and the marginalized. Following the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the retirement of Stephen Breyer, Sotomayor became the most senior member of the Court’s severely outnumbered, three-justice liberal bloc. She is renowned for her fiery, deeply emotional dissents against the conservative supermajority, particularly regarding voting rights, affirmative action, and the 2024 presidential immunity ruling (famously writing, "With fear for our democracy, I dissent"). Throughout 2024 and 2025, she withstood intense public pressure from the progressive establishment to retire so the Biden administration could appoint a younger liberal successor, opting instead to remain on the bench as the definitive voice of the Democratic resistance on the Court.