Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas overcame humble beginnings and racial discrimination before earning elite educations, but they bring very different views about race-conscious college admissions to the Supreme Court as it weighs affirmative action challenges.
Sotomayor, 68, a liberal and the court’s first Latina, has called herself the “perfect affirmative action baby.” Thomas, 74, a conservative and the court’s second Black justice, considers it stigmatizing.
Thomas “believes that everyone is capable of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps,” Sotomayor said at a recent Roosevelt University event, adding “I believe not everyone can reach their bootstraps.”
