BRONX: Cardinal Spellman Honors Sotomayor

It is now 37 years since Sonia Sotomayor graduated from Cardinal Spellman High School—but even as a teenager the talents that would bring her national attention were already apparent.
Since Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court on May 1, media outlets including The Washington Post and The New York Times have suggested that President Barack Obama may consider Bronx-born Sotomayor–currently serving as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit—to replace him. Rep. Nydia M. Velázquez, Democrat of New York, chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has also issued a statement citing Judge Sotomayor as a possible replacement for Justice Souter.

If Sotomayor were to be appointed and confirmed she would be the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice in American history.
At Cardinal Spellman, a Catholic high school in Baychester, former students who now serve on the faculty are remembering the Sotomayor they knew as a student—the fiercely ambitious daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants who grew up in the projects.
“She was very well-known,” said Renée Fiorenza, who under her maiden name Ferrante was another member of the class of 1972, and now teaches Italian and Spanish. “She was one of the smartest girls in the school.”
Sitting outside the school’s Father McDonald Gymnasium, Fiorenza recalled Sotomayor as a young woman who was recognized throughout the 500-student class. “When she spoke, people listened, and she made a lot of sense,” said the 54-year-old.
Elsewhere on the faculty Bob Anderson, another 1972 Cardinal Spellman graduate who now works as the school’s director of guidance, remembers Sotomayor’s participation in student government and the debating team at a time when there were far fewer Latino students at the school than today.
“She made her presence felt,” he said, sitting in an office decorated with photographs of Yankee Stadium. “She was very intelligent, motivated, she seemed to have her hand in all different activities.”
The concrete architecture and linoleum floors of the Cardinal Spellman campus are much as they were in the early 1970s. However, Anderson added that the student body is now much more diverse than it was during his schooldays – around one third Caucasian, one third Hispanic, and one third black.

After leaving Cardinal Spellman, Sotomayor went on to study at Princeton University, and then won a place at Yale Law School, where she edited the Yale Law Journal.

After graduating she worked as an assistant district attorney in New York before joining the law firm Pavia & Harcourt in Manhattan. George M. Pavia, one of the firm’s partners, remembers her as an ambitious young attorney.

“She was with us for eight years, then Clinton nominated her for the District Court,” he said. “She had all the natural talents of a good lawyer; she could analyze facts and documents.”

If there is any such a nomination and confirmation of Sotomayor to the high court, many liberals would hope she would act as a counterweight to the conservatives, notably Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Antonin Scalia.
However, Ellen P. Chapnick, the dean for Social Justice Initiatives at Columbia Law School, who knows Sotomayor personally, said that while Sotomayor is undoubtedly liberal in her own views, she is also determined to take each case on its own merits, rather than through a purely ideological lens.
“Her goals as a judge are to decide the case in front of her while providing guidance to the lower courts and the legal community,” said Chapnick in an e-mail. “As a result, her opinions on the application of law are to the specific facts at issue and are not theoretical theses.”
Whether Sotomayor’s chances of being appointed are a long shot or not, many Hispanics are thrilled by the fact she is even being mentioned in the context of the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Anyone who comes from the Bronx, who happens to be Puerto Rican, we all have to take pride that this is one of our children who has risen to the highest court in the land,” said Roberto Ramirez, the president-elect of the Puerto Rican Bar Association.