Sotomayor Laments Lawyers Who Want to ‘Criminalize Free Speech’

US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said whenever she hears a “lawyer-trained representative say we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself, that law school has failed.”

“If any student who becomes a lawyer hasn’t been taught civics, then that law school has failed,” Sotomayor said Tuesday at New York Law School. “Because it is for that system that you’re working as a lawyer.”

The remarks, part of a wide-ranging conversation at the school’s “Constitution & Citizenship Day Summit,” come amid broader concerns about the state of free expression. Sotomayor didn’t specify which representatives she was referring to, but her remarks came one day after US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on the “Katie Miller Podcast” that law enforcement would “target” people who are “targeting anyone with hate speech, across the aisle.”

Sotomayor also expressed worries about the state of online discourse. “There’s no question in my mind that social media is one of the largest causes of misinformation on the internet,” the justice said. “Everyone has a responsibility to become media literate.”

In the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Sotomayor’s fellow Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Friday also lamented the way she said people increasingly handle their differences.

Barrett, at the University of Notre Dame last week, said: “I think too often, when I look around the country—political violence is the most grotesque symptom of it—but there are others, too. In online conversations and the way people treat those with whom they disagree.”

Sotomayor on Tuesday also said civics education is important for learning the constraints on leaders.

“Do we understand what the difference is between a king and a president?” she said. “I think if people understood these things from the beginning, they would be more informed as to what would be important in a democracy.”

Asked later in the conversation about her hopes for the legal profession, she said: “What is rule of law? If you look at the dictionary, it tells you that it’s a society in which leaders are constrained by rules they follow.”

Noting that slavery was once law too, she added that not all laws are good. “The rule of law means being ruled by citizens who have thoughtfully considered and engaged in the process of law,” she said. “The moment we take the people out of the equation—which is happening more and more with so many people who are not voting—once we do that, we do lose the republic.”