Princeton will name building for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Class of 1976
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Princeton Class of 1976.
Princeton will rename 36 University Place in honor of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Class of 1976.
“As a trailblazing student, a loyal alumnus, a University trustee, and an extraordinary jurist, Justice Sotomayor has lived Princeton’s values fully and beautifully. I’m delighted that her name will grace our campus and inspire generations of students now and in the future,” President Christopher L. Eisgruber said.
The building at 36 University Place is the site of programs that support first-generation college, lower-income, transfer, and veteran students, as well as the first place that many prospective students visit on campus. It houses the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity, the Center for Career Development, and the undergraduate Admission Information Center. The site also includes one of the two Princeton University Store locations.
The building at 36 University Place will be renamed Sonia Sotomayor Hall. This rendering shows how the Blair Walk entrance of the building will look with the new name.
“Sonia Sotomayor Hall houses programs at the heart of Princeton’s ongoing commitment to attract exceptional students from all backgrounds and help them flourish as members of this campus community. I could not imagine a better namesake for this building than Justice Sotomayor, and I was thrilled when the Council of the Princeton University Community’s Committee on Naming recommended her for this honor,” Eisgruber said.
Princeton will also add a portrait of Justice Sotomayor to its permanent art collection. The portrait is among 11 new portraits the University has commissioned since 2018 to recognize individuals who, over the past 75 years, “have been preeminent in a particular field, who have excelled in the nation’s service and the service of humanity, or have made a significant contribution to the culture of Princeton.”
The Honorable Sonia Sotomayor has served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2009. She is the first justice of Hispanic heritage and the third woman justice in Supreme Court history. She is also a former University trustee.
Her 2014 Alumni Day speech helped inspire the University to modify its informal motto to “Princeton in the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity,” adding her words to those of Woodrow Wilson 1879. In 2019, a group of alumni established the Sonia Sotomayor 1976 Scholarship Fund in her honor to support students from first-generation backgrounds who have demonstrated a commitment to service.
Justice Sotomayor is the daughter of Puerto Rican parents and grew up in the Bronx, New York. She graduated from Princeton with highest honors. As a senior, she received the University’s highest undergraduate award, the Moses Taylor Pyne Honor Prize. While on campus, Justice Sotomayor served as co-chair of the student group Acción Puertorriqueña y Amigos, as a member of the student-faculty Committee on Discipline, and on the governance board of the Third World Center.
The naming of Sonia Sotomayor Hall was approved by the Board of Trustees based on the recommendation of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) Committee on Naming.
Justice Sotomayor’s career “has exemplified to an extraordinary degree this University’s core values of service, truth-seeking and justice,” said the naming committee’s former chair Stephen Macedo, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values, in the committee’s recommendation to the board.
Since 2016, the University has named several spaces with advice from the CPUC naming committee that honor a range of individuals with connections to Princeton. Examples include Morrison Hall in honor of Nobel laureate and former Princeton faculty member Toni Morrison; Laura Wooten Hall in honor of Laura Wooten, the longtime election poll worker, Princeton resident and former Campus Dining staff member; and Ikeda Arch, in honor of Kentaro Ikeda, Class of 1944, the University’s sole Japanese student during World War II.
In addition to Justice Sotomayor, portraits commissioned as part of the History and Sense of Place initiative honor Morrison; Sir W. Arthur Lewis, also a Nobel laureate; Bill Bradley, Class of 1965; Denny Chin, Class of 1975; José Ferrer, Class of 1933; Carl A. Fields, former assistant dean of the college; Elaine Fuchs, a 1977 graduate alumna; Robert J. Rivers, Class of 1953; former University trustee Ruth Simmons; and Alan M. Turing, a 1938 graduate alumnus.
