Liberal Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor opened up on Friday at Harvard University about how she has cried after some court decisions.
The Harvard Crimson reported on Sotomayor’s candid admission, which happened during an event at which she received a medal recognizing her impact on society.
“There are days that I’ve come to my office after an announcement of a case and closed my door and cried,” Sotomayor said.
She added, “There have been those days. And there are likely to be more.”
CNN noted that Sotomayor did not mention any particular cases that have caused her to shed tears.
The justice did acknowledge how there are “moments when I’m deeply, deeply sad. And there are moments when, yes, even I feel desperation. We all do.”
Sotomayor went on, “But you have to own it. You have to accept it. You have to shed the tears, and then you have to wipe them and get up and fight some more.”
A justice since 2009, Sotomayor witnessed former President Donald Trump lead the charge in creating a 6-3 conservative-majority Supreme Court.
In recent years, the high court has levied significant rulings opposed by Sotomayor, including one in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade.
Some legal scholars have been pushing for Sotomayor, who is 69 and a lifelong diabetic, to step down and give President Joe Biden another nominee.
The pressure campaign picked up steam after Sotomayor said in January that she was “tired” from her workload.
NBC News reported last month that Senate Democrats were concerned about a scenario echoing Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s sudden death.
Ginsburg’s passing in September 2020 allowed Trump to nominate one more eventual justice — Amy Coney Barrett — in the final months of his presidency.
“I think she really has to weigh the competing factors,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) told the news outlet. “We should learn a lesson.”
He added, “The old saying — graveyards are full of indispensable people, ourselves in this body included.”
Biden is running for a second term, paving the way to a 2020 general election rematch against Trump in this year’s contest.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Biden “believes that decisions to retire from the Supreme Court should be made by the justices themselves and no one else.”
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