Sotomayor Was Mature, Well-Liked, Listened to Others, Yale Classmates Say
Despite some recent media accounts that depict U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor as sharp-tongued, that isn’t how the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge struck many of her fellow Yale Law School students when they were on campus together in the Class of 1979.
Contacted by the Yale Daily News, they routinely recall their former classmate today as mature and well-liked, someone who didn’t monopolize classroom debate and listened to the opinions of others, the student newspaper reports.
A number of classmates said they would have predicted other stellar students were more likely to wind up on the Supreme Court. Some also wonder, though, whether Sotomayor has been, perhaps, unfairly discounted because she didn’t make a point of aggressively showing off her intellect.
“She has a very good judicial temper, but she is no softie,” says friend and classmate Rudolph Aragon. “She can be aggressive on the bench—she is very smart and very curious.”
Related coverage:
Blog of Legal Times: “Sotomayor’s Law Clerks Sing Her Praises”
ABAJournal.com: “Sotomayor’s Sharp Tongue Will Make Her a Match for Scalia”
The New Republic: “The Case Against Sotomayor”
Updated at 7:05 p.m. to link to Blog of Legal Times coverage.
