Justice Sotomayor Attacks Colleague Personally

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor just publicly questioned whether her conservative colleague Brett Kavanaugh has ever met someone who works by the hour, opening a window into tensions tearing at the nation’s highest court.

Story Snapshot

Sotomayor criticized Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence on immigration raids, suggesting his affluent background blinds him to hourly workers’ realities
She blamed conservative colleagues for unprecedented emergency docket abuses enabling racial profiling of Latino workers
The justice admitted her conservative colleagues are “really frustrating” during media appearances in early April 2026
Previous claims of collegiality with Justice Gorsuch now appear strained following the public remarks

When Judicial Restraint Meets Personal Attacks

Sotomayor’s April 7, 2026 appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law marked a departure from typical judicial decorum. She quoted Kavanaugh’s concurrence in a recent ICE enforcement case and then delivered a personal blow, noting he “probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.” Her evidence? His professional parents, who she observed attending oral arguments. The attack reveals a troubling conflation of personal biography with judicial reasoning, suggesting empathy derives from economic background rather than constitutional fidelity.

The context matters here. The Court’s 6-3 conservative majority had just greenlit ICE raids in California targeting suspected undocumented immigrants. Kavanaugh characterized these enforcement actions as mere “temporary stops” in his concurrence. Sotomayor penned a 20-page dissent accusing the majority of enabling seizures based on appearance, language, and employment in low-wage jobs. Her objection centers on claims of racial profiling, yet her remedy would apparently require judges to possess working-class credentials before ruling on labor-related constitutional questions.

The Shadow Docket Blame Game

Two days later at the University of Alabama Law School, Sotomayor escalated her critique beyond individual justices to the institution itself. She blamed the Court for an “unprecedented” flood of emergency appeals, what critics call the “shadow docket.” These orders arrive without full briefing or oral argument, allowing rapid decisions on urgent matters. Sotomayor suggests her conservative colleagues abuse this process, though she conveniently ignores that emergency applications require parties to demonstrate irreparable harm and likelihood of success on appeal before the Court acts.

The emergency docket exists precisely for situations demanding swift resolution before permanent damage occurs. Immigration enforcement qualifies when state governments actively obstruct federal authority. Sotomayor’s dissent frames these raids as constitutional violations, but the majority evidently saw lawful executive action being blocked by California’s resistance. Her public shaming tour substitutes emotional appeals about racial profiling for legal analysis of whether ICE agents executing warrants violates the Fourth Amendment. The answer, according to six justices, is no.

Collegiality as Political Theater

During appearances on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” and “The View” between April 8-9, Sotomayor admitted her conservative colleagues are “really frustrating” while claiming she tries to “look for the good in them.” This patronizing framing treats constitutional originalists as misbehaving children rather than jurists with defensible philosophies. She warned that precedents like Roe v. Wade’s overturn signal broader threats to freedoms, recycling familiar progressive talking points from the 2022 Dobbs decision that returned abortion policy to state legislatures where it constitutionally belongs.

The justice also claimed civil relationships or friendships with “virtually all” colleagues, a statement that rings hollow given her public attacks. Just four years earlier in 2022, reports surfaced of tension with Justice Gorsuch over COVID masking protocols when she worked remotely. The two issued a joint statement denying any rift, calling themselves “warm colleagues and friends.” Yet Sotomayor’s 2026 tour conspicuously omits renewed praise for Gorsuch, whom she called “such a lovely person” back in 2019. Either those friendships were performative from the start, or her frustration now overrides previous diplomatic restraint.

The Empathy Fallacy and Judicial Philosophy

Sotomayor’s critique of Kavanaugh rests on a fundamental misunderstanding of the judicial role. Judges interpret laws and constitutional text, not craft policy based on personal familiarity with affected populations. Her suggestion that Kavanaugh’s professional-class upbringing disqualifies him from understanding hourly workers inverts merit-based jurisprudence. By this logic, only former criminals could adjudicate criminal cases, only women could rule on abortion, only veterans on military law. The Constitution demands impartial application of law, not demographic representation on the bench.

Justice Sotomayor Opens Up About Her Colleagues. She blames her colleagues for the emergency docket situation, and faults Justice Kavanaugh for not knowing people who earn an hourly wage. https://t.co/eFsUfQF5Zv

— Josh Blackman (@JoshMBlackman) April 10, 2026

The immigration enforcement order she opposed illustrates this principle. Federal law grants ICE authority to detain and remove illegal aliens. California enacted sanctuary policies obstructing that authority. The question before the Court was whether California could nullify federal immigration enforcement, not whether agents might profile Latinos during raids. Sotomayor’s dissent assumed unlawful profiling without evidence, then faulted Kavanaugh for insufficient empathy toward workers fearing deportation. Yet enforcing congressionally enacted immigration law requires no empathy for those violating it, only fidelity to statutory text and executive authority.

What This Reveals About the Modern Court

Sotomayor’s speaking tour exposes the Court’s deep ideological fracture in an era when progressives lost their majority. Appointed by Obama in 2009, she now faces a 6-3 conservative supermajority following Trump’s three appointments between 2017-2020. Her public frustration mirrors progressive activists who view the Court as illegitimate when it doesn’t advance their policy preferences. The emergency docket criticism deflects from substantive disagreement over constitutional interpretation, framing conservative jurisprudence as procedurally abusive rather than textually grounded.

The long-term damage from these remarks extends beyond individual relationships. Justices publicly shaming colleagues by name erodes institutional credibility and normalizes partisan attacks on the judiciary. When Sotomayor questions Kavanaugh’s capacity to understand ordinary Americans based on his parents’ careers, she invites reciprocal attacks on her own biography and temperament. The Court’s authority rests partly on public perception that justices transcend politics to apply law neutrally. Her admission that conservatives “frustrate” her and her search for “good in them” suggests she views them as moral inferiors, not intellectual equals with different judicial philosophies.