Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to visit University Monday
Supreme Court Justices Elena Kagan (top) and Sonia Sotomayor (bottom) greets fellow guests during the presidential inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol January 21, 2013 in Washington, DC. Barack Obama was re-elected for a second term as President of the United States. (Mark Gail/MCT)
March 7, 2016
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor will visit the University on Monday to judge the College of Law’s annual moot court competition and present a lecture to the public.
The lecture, “A Conversation with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor,”ss is hosted by the College of Law and will cover ”a wide range of topics” with Robin Kar, University Law professorss.
Tickets to attend the lecture sold out within the first hour of becoming available on Feb. 15. The tickets, which were available by phone, through the Krannert Center website and in-person, were free but limited and are required for entry the night of the event.
According to Krannert’s website, attendees of the 7 p.m. lecture must be seated by 6:50 p.m. for security reasons or be forced to surrender their seat to patrons waiting in line who were not able to get tickets.
Sotomayor will sign copies of her book, “My Beloved World,” in Krannert’s lobby at 8:30 p.m. following the discussionss.
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Sotomayor will also be one of the judges in the Frederick Green Moot Court competition, the law school’s biggest moot court competition, on March 8ss. Sotomayor’s involvement with the competition was announced in July in an email to students in the College of Law.
The competition was named after Professor Frederick Green, who taught at the University from 1904 to 1939ss.
According to the competition’s website, four University College of Law students will be participating in the moot court competition: Elizabeth Carter, Sarah Craig, Lindsey Lusk and Kevin McKeownss. The top competitors will be chosen to compete nationally and will be editors for the following year’s competition.
Sotomayor’s visit comes on the heels of the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Feb. 13 at a Texas ranchss.
Filling the late justice’s vacant seat offers President Barack Obama the chance to tip the ideological balance of the court toward liberal, leaving the Republican-controlled Senate — the chamber which votes to confirm judicial nominations — largely opposed to voting on a nominee as the 2016 presidential election draws near.
Top republican senators including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley have promised to stymy any attempt by Obama to fill the vacant seat before his term ends in January 2017. Senator Mark Kirk, breaking with his Republican colleagues, has stated that he believes the Senate should hold a vote on Obama’s future nominee, which would be Obama’s third Supreme Court nomination since the confirmation of Sotomayor in 2009 and Elena Kagan in 2010.
According to the Supreme Court’s website, Sotomayor was nominated as an associate justice to the Supreme Court after serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit since 1998ss.
Sotomayor was born in the Bronx, New York City, New York in 1954 to Puerto Rican-born parents; her appointment to the Supreme Court earned her the distinction of being the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice and the third female justicess.
Sotomayor earned her bachelor’s degree from Princeton in 1976 and her juris doctor from Yale in 1979ss.
Also serving on the moot court panel will be Ann Williams of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit and Jill Pryor of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuitss.??
A former version of this article previously misspelled Kevin McKeown’s last name. The error has been corrected. The Daily Illini regrets the error.
