U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told University of Oklahoma College of Law students that adversity and even failure are vital in building a career.
The justice finished a state speaking tour at the college on Friday, September 12, at the invitation of OU President David Boren. Sotomayor talked extensively with students, even leaving her seat on the stage to roam among them, sit with them, and take photographs with them.
"There is value in adversity," Sotomayor told the crowd. "There is value to failure.”
“If you take from failure a sense of accomplishment--a sense that it’s worthy to be a gladiator in life, to really battle for those things that you need to do--then you get a greater sense of satisfaction in yourself, even if you fail. And I say that because all of us fail at something. And you learn something about yourself.”
"It is her personal quality of faithfullness to the rule of law that gives honor for having her here today," said President Boren in Sotomayor's introduction.
Following the fireside chat, Justice Sotomayor spoke to 200 OU Law alumni and friends at a luncheon in the Sandy Bell Gallery in the Fred Jones, Jr. Museum of Art.
On May 26, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Justice Sotomayor as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Sotomayor is the nation’s first Hispanic U.S. Supreme Court justice.
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