Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor Admits To Crying In Her Office After Recent Rulings: ‘There Are Likely To Be More’

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor revealed that she has cried in her office after losses on major cases due to the panel’s conservative supermajority. 

On Friday, Sotomayor spoke to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University while receiving the Radcliffe Medal. 

“There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” Sotomayor admitted to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. “There have been those days. And there are likely to be more.”

While she did not reveal which events or cases drove her to tears, she pushed the need to keep fighting for particular causes. She was likely referring to the court’s overturning of Roe V. Wade, which guaranteed women’s right to an abortion nationwide.

“There are moments when I’m deeply, deeply sad,” she said. “And there are moments when, yes, even I feel desperation. We all do. But you have to own it. You have to accept it. You have to shed the tears, and then you have to wipe them and get up and fight some more.”

Sotomayor spoke to the University of California, Berkeley School of Law in January. There, she spoke about her time as a Supreme Court justice. “Cases are bigger. They’re more demanding. The number of amici [participating parties] is greater, and you know that our emergency calendar is so much more active—I’m tired,” she said.

“There used to be a time when we had a good chunk of the summer break. Not anymore. The emergency calendar is busy almost on a weekly basis,” said Sotomayor. 

After Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, liberals pressured Sotomayor to step down and retire out of concern about her health and age. After refusing to quit, Ginsburg famously died while on the bench, and President Donald Trump was given the power to replace her with a conservative justice. If Sotomayor steps down now, Biden would be able to put a liberal on the bench with the Democratic-controlled Senate. 

In 2009, Sotomayor was the first Latina to serve as a justice and the third woman after being appointed to Supreme Court justice by President Barack Obama.