Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor addressed differences between her and colleague Justice Clarence Thomas during a wide-ranging talk Thursday.
Sotomayor spoke about the many disagreements she’s had with Thomas, a conservative justice whose wife continues to falsely claim the 2020 presidential election was stolen, during a talk at Chicago’s Roosevelt University.
“I always try to find the good in everybody. I look for the things that they do that are good,” Sotomayor said, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. She added that Thomas “cares about people. He cares about legal issues differently than me. Clarence, who grew up very poor, believes that everyone is capable of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. I believe not everyone can reach their bootstraps.”
Sotomayor, a liberal justice appointed to the Supreme Court in 2009 by President Barack Obama, also received the Eleanor Roosevelt Social Justice Award at the event. She also took several questions from students, including a question about what Sotomayor would say to someone who feels disenfranchised and powerless in the U.S. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court overruled a landmark ruling protecting abortion rights.
“I ask people, ‘What choice do we have but to keep trying to change things?’ Because if you feel disenfranchised and let other people fight for what they think is right and you’re not willing to get up and fight, then you are just giving it to them,” Sotomayor said.
