WASHINGTON - - Sonia Sotomayor completed an unlikely and historic journey Thursday, one that began with her birth in a Bronx, N.Y., housing project 55 years ago and culminated in her confirmation as the Supreme Court's 111th justice.
When she is sworn into office Saturday, Sotomayor will take her place as the high court's first Latino and just its third woman. She was approved by a 68-31 Senate vote after three days of debate. Nine Republicans crossed party lines to support her.
But what she brings to the high court goes far beyond her ethnicity or gender.
Sotomayor will be the only justice whose first language was not English. She spoke Spanish at home as a child, and she will join a court that enforces a federal law that calls for equal opportunity in schools for children who do not speak English.
She has had diabetes since childhood, a medical condition classified as a disability under the federal law that forbids discrimination against persons with physical or mental impairments.
Disability-rights advocates have suffered some big defeats in the court in the past decade, and they have high hopes for her. "We're very excited. We don't feel we have had a champion on the current court," said Andrew Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities.
She was raised in a city housing project where drugs and crime were more common than scholarly success at an Ivy League institution. Sotomayor refers to herself proudly as an "affirmative action baby," having been admitted to Princeton University with less than stellar SAT scores, but who nonetheless graduated with highest honors.
She will "change the conversation on affirmative action" within the court, says University of Maryland law professor Sherrilyn Ifill. The only other minority on the court, Justice Clarence Thomas, is a staunch foe, maintaining that affirmative-action policies taint the accomplishments of all minorities.
"Her story of how hard she worked to graduate first in her class from Princeton makes her really the poster child for the benefits of affirmative action," Ifill said.
Sotomayor is also a divorced woman who has no children, but a close relationship with an extended family.
"She is a modern woman with a nontraditional family," said Sylvia Lazos, a law professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. "She is much more reflective of contemporary American society than the other justices like Alito and Roberts."
