Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told a group of law students Wednesday that recent conservative opinions from the high court should encourage them to fight back, Law360 reported.
Appearing at Fordham Law School's annual Robert L. Levine Distinguished Lecture Series, the liberal justice pushed for students not to feel dejected by the right-wing trajectory of the Supreme Court.
"Wrong things can be changed, and that's what lawyers do is work on changing those wrong things," Sotomayor said. "And so, what I say to a young lawyer is: People make laws. Justices are people, and people can get laws wrong.
"If you're disillusioned, then identify what's disillusioning you and become a champion of change," she continued. "Go out there and fight the battle. That's how I get up every morning."
Sotomayor did not mention any recent decisions, including federal abortion rights being overruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
However, she noted Plessy v. Ferguson's decision to maintain segregation in the late 1800s as an obvious example of a historic mistake.
Her appearance at Fordham comes after Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, a conservative sitting on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, was shouted down by students at Stanford Law School earlier this month.
The school later apologized to Duncan, writing in a statement that "what happened was inconsistent with our policies on free speech."
"We are taking steps to ensure that something like this does not happen again," Stanford leaders pledged. "Freedom of speech is a bedrock principle for the law school, the university, and a democratic society, and we can and must do better to ensure that it continues even in polarized times."
Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh's decision to meet with Columbia University's Federalist Society members in February sparked outrage this month after the group posted about it on social media.
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