Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor urged Americans frustrated by the election’s outcome not to grow despondent, but to speak out.
Asked on Tuesday whether she was “in any way apprehensive” about the election results, Sotomayor sidestepped the question and said every person has “an obligation to continue being heard and continue doing the right thing.”
“We can’t afford to despair and we can’t afford to give up pursuing the values that we and others have fought so hard to achieve,” Sotomayor said at the Old Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C. “And so for me this is a challenge.”
Sotomayor avoided mentioning President-elect Trump by name, but said the country cannot afford to have a president fail. She added that the country must “help guide him” toward making right decisions and said she thought it correct for people to “support that which he does is right” for the sake of the country.
Sotomayor, a justice appointed by President Obama, spoke extemporaneously throughout the evening; pausing periodically in the middle of remarks for photos with audience members.
The justice also talked about her belief that structural barriers to equality exist in American society and talked about her own experience benefitting from affirmative action to obtain a college degree. If the country decided it no longer needs affirmative action for minority ethnicity Americans going forward, Sotomayor stressed that people must retain the “spirit that says we want to be more than we are.”
