Sonia Sotomayor Quotes

You can't be a minority in this society without having someone express disapproval about affirmative action.

Affirmative action has a negative effect on our society when it means counting us like so many beans and dividing us into separate piles.

To say that a millionaire son of a Black deserves a preference over a poor White is pure madness.

I am not arguing for a utopian society; equal opportunity for all, though ideal, is unrealistic.

Everyone is born equally capable but lacks equal opportunity.

I learned early that I had to work harder than the white kids and harder than the boys.

I want nothing to do with privilege.

Everyone should have the same opportunity, and in many areas that's not the case because programs are built around the elite.

And nothing embittered me, which is important, because I think ethnic people and women in this society can end up being embittered because of the lack of affirmative action, you know.

Equality ... is the result of human organization.... We are not born equal.

Colored people are quite ignorant, mostly uneducated and I doubt that they would seek an education if they had an opportunity.

Without affirmative action I could never have attended Yale University. Without affirmative action Barack Obama would never have gotten into Colombia and Harvard Law school

Both class and race survive education, and neither should.

The typical white intellectual considers himself superior to ordinary white people for two contradictory reasons: a) he constantly proclaims belief in human equality, but they don't ; b) he has a high IQ, but they don't.

Whenever we have sought real progress through affirmative action, the spokespersons of the advantaged have not hesitated to cry foul ….

You are exacerbating inequality rather than opening up opportunity.

We live in a system that espouses merit, equality, and a level playing field, but exalts those with wealth, power, and celebrity, however gained.

I don't believe in college admission or any other venue that we should pick one race or sex over another in college admissions. My philosophy and reaction is that I would not support a program that by race or status alone elevates someone over another in a competition of sorts.

I think it's worth putting energy into affirmative action in terms of having diversity in positions of power because the door was shut for so long.

In America, many marginally competent or flatly incompetent whites are hired every day -some because their white skin suits the conscious or unconscious racial preference of their employers. The white children of alumni are often grandfathered into elite universities in what can only be seen as a residual benefit of historic white privilege.

Advocating for affirmative action through the prism of diversity may be more politically palatable, but it will inevitably yield insufficient results.

We are building a country where a person's prospects are determined by their own initiative and hard work and not by the color of their skin, place of birth, gender, language, or income of their parents.

I shouldn't have to be preparing my children that the world is going to be unfair to them for the rest of their lives.

Before we start talking about genetic differences, you gotta come up with a system where there's equal opportunity.

What people don't know about oppression is that the oppressor works much harder. You always grew up being told you were not smart enough or not fast enough, but we all lived from the time we were children to beat the system.