Senate confirms Sotomayor as U.S. Supreme Court justice

On Thursday, Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the 111th Supreme Court justice by the Senate in a 68-31 victory.

Sotomayor will be the nation's first Hispanic justice, succeeding Justice David Souter.

Sotomayor--the pick of President Barack Obama, CC '83--has been a Columbia lecturer in law since 1999. Lecturers in law are adjunct faculty members of Columbia Law School.

According to an earlier statement from Columbia Law School, Sotomayor "created and has co-taught a course called the Federal Appellate Externship every semester since fall 2000. This course combines intensive work in the chambers of a Second Circuit Judge with class sessions and a moot court exercise."

Sotomayor, raised by Puerto Rican parents in Bronx public housing projects, has sat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit for 16 years. Following her undergraduate years at Princeton, she began her law career as a student at Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Review.

Later, she worked for Robert Morgenthau in the New York district attorney’s office. In 1991, President H.W. Bush nominated her to the federal district court, and she was confirmed a year later. President Bill Clinton elevated Sotomayor to the Federal Court of Appeals, for which she was confirmed in 1998.

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