“I’m a very, very proud American — and I shout that from rooftops,” Sotomayor said.

NEW HAVEN REGISTER

Posted 24-OCTOBER-2014

By Mark Zaretsky, New Haven Register

http://www.nhregister.com/general-news/20141024/supreme-court-justice-sotomayor-gives-unh-students-nuggets-for-life

Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor gives UNH students ‘nuggets’ for life

“I’m a very, very proud American — and I shout that from rooftops,” Sotomayor said.

WEST HAVEN >> Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor gave University of New Haven students some nuggets for life Friday that would be worth taking to heart even if she weren’t a groundbreaking citizen who is one of the nine members of the nation’s highest court.

“Any time you feel inadequate about something, don’t assume that you’re incapable,” said Sotomayor, who in 2009 became the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court and is author of “My Beloved World,” which debuted last year at the top of the New York Times Best Seller List.

“Assume that you’re very capable,” said Sotomayor, who grew up in a housing project in the Bronx, the daughter of parents who came to New York from Puerto Rico. “You just have to learn.”

“You can learn enough to manage any class that you’re in,” she told about 200 students, faculty and staff gathered in the Alumni Lounge in UNH’s Student Center. “You just have to ask questions.”

She also told them not to be like she was in college and to get out into the world.

“One of my great regrets about my years in college … is that I was such a nerd,” Sotomayor said. “All of my activities outside my student activity were studying.” She said she regretted that “I didn’t take time to explore the neighborhood I was in … and now I think that was a mistake.”

There were “many people — some similar to me, some not,” that she wishes she had gotten to know.

Sotomayor, a Princeton University and Yale Law School graduate who is back for her 35th reunion this weekend, freely offered advice during a wide-ranging talk that was mostly centered around answering students’ questions.

She began before she even walked in the main room, telling members of the UNH Legal Society, which organized her talk, out in a hallway that the best lawyers she knows are lawyers “who can talk to anybody about anything.”

Sotomayor spoke privately to the students a few minutes before Philip H. Bartels, chairman of the UNH Board of Governors — subbing for President Steven H. Kaplan, who was away on business — introduced her for the main event.

One reason UNH was able arrange Sotomayor’s visit is that UNH Associate Professor Donna Decker Morris, director of the university’s Legal Studies Program and the Legal Society’s adviser, is an old friend who was one of her law school classmates.

Morris moderated the talk and asked Sotomayor pre-submitted questions from students for the bulk of the hour-long visit after Sotomayor spent just a few minutes speaking extemporaneously, walking up and down the aisles rather than standing at the front of the room.

Sotomayor joked about how as a child her family nicknamed her “Aji” — Spanish for hot pepper — because she could never stand still.

Justice Sotomayor posed for photographs with several of the students whose questions she answered.

Questions included what was the first thing she did after being confirmed on the high court (she went to a friend’s “and I collapsed for a month”) and what her most satisfying professional moment has been.

She answered the latter by saying she couldn’t give the full details of her most satisfying professional moments “but they’re usually when you can convince a colleague to change” their mind on an issue that you feel strongly about.

“The reality is, it doesn’t happen that often,” Sotomayor said. That’s because before the justices actually vote, they’ve all read the briefs and studied the issues and “we’re pretty well-prepared.”

“By the time we got to oral arguments, if you haven’t convinced us in your brief, you’ve made a big mistake,” she said.

One student asked her, having grown up in the Bronx with Puerto Rican parents, what role she felt her cultural background plays.

Sotomayor said that each justice brings their own background and life experience to the court, and it is valuable to have justices who have life experience that others don’t.

“I’m a very, very proud American — and I shout that from rooftops,” Sotomayor said. But she said her values come from the culture that she comes from. It is important for people to know and appreciate others’ cultures, and “to be able to appreciate others’ cultures, I have to like my own,” she said.

Students appreciated the opportunity to get up-close and personal with Sotomayor, and several said afterward that they were quite surprised by aspects of her.

“She’s so humble,’ said Ariel Pierce, a senior who, like Sotomayor, grew up in the Bronx. Pierce spoke as she left with friends Ashlee Alexander, a senior from Baltimore, and Jasmine Pierce, a senior from Monroe.

Alexander said she was impressed by Sotomayor’s answer to the final question, related to how she defines success.

Sotomayor said she never aspired to be on the Supreme Court until she went to law school — and worried that “if you define success by some far-off goal,” you might not allow yourself the freedom to take a detour that might be better for you, or change your mind.

“If you don’t reach that goal, are you a failure?” she asked.

“I’ve always measured success by setting small goals, every day of my life, in every situation that I’ve been in,” Sotomayor said.

In the end, she said, she measures success by answering the question, “How much have I grown?”

Sotomayor will join Yale Law School graduates Justices Clarence Thomas ’74, and Samuel A. Alito Jr. ’75, Saturday in Woolsey Hall, where they will be presented with the Award of Merit, according to the Yale Law School website.