Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a rare public apology Wednesday for what she called "hurtful" and "inappropriate" remarks about Justice Brett Kavanaugh, walking back comments she made during a law school appearance in which she questioned his understanding of working-class life based on his parents' professional backgrounds.
The apology, released through the Supreme Court itself, came after Sotomayor used an appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law to criticize, without naming him directly, Kavanaugh's legal reasoning in an immigration enforcement case. But she went further than legal disagreement, making it personal.
As Fox News Digital reported, Sotomayor told the Kansas audience that a colleague had written in the case that immigration stops were "only temporary." She then added a line that drew wide attention:
"This is from a man whose parents were professionals and probably doesn't really know any person who works by the hour."
That remark was widely understood to target Kavanaugh, who had written a concurrence in the Trump administration's emergency appeal in Noem v. Perdomo. In that opinion, dated September 8, 2025, Kavanaugh argued that legal residents' encounters with immigration officers are "typically brief, and those individuals may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States."
Sotomayor disagreed, and chose to frame her disagreement not in legal terms but as a matter of class and life experience.
The court-released statement was brief. Sotomayor acknowledged that during her University of Kansas appearance on April 7, she had crossed a line. Just The News reported the fuller text of her statement:
"At a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate. I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague."
That Sotomayor felt compelled to issue a formal, court-released apology tells you how far outside normal bounds her remarks fell. Justices disagree fiercely in written opinions all the time. They do not typically stand before law students and suggest a colleague is too privileged to understand ordinary Americans.
The case at the center of the dispute, Noem v. Perdomo, involved a Trump administration emergency appeal. The Supreme Court stayed the case 6, 3 in September, and an unsigned order allowed immigration enforcement sweeps in Los Angeles to resume. The stay permitted ICE to use factors including "apparent race or ethnicity" and work location to justify immigration stops in California.
Sotomayor dissented. She referenced the issue of racial profiling, which the article notes she framed in part through her identity as the first Hispanic justice. She also invoked her "life experiences" as giving her the ability to "think more broadly and to see things others may not."
Sotomayor has made no secret of her frustration at being in the ideological minority on the current Court. That frustration is her right. Every justice who has found themselves outvoted has dealt with it in some form. But there is a difference between a blistering dissent filed in a case, the proper venue for sharp disagreement, and a public appearance where a sitting justice mocks a colleague's upbringing to a room full of law students.
The remark about Kavanaugh's parents was not a legal argument. It was a personal shot. It suggested that because his mother and father held professional jobs, Kavanaugh lacks the capacity to understand the lives of hourly workers. That is not constitutional reasoning. It is credentialism dressed up as empathy, the idea that only people with the right biography can reach the right conclusions.
Sotomayor's broader record on the bench this term reflects that same combative posture. She has issued multiple sharp dissents warning that the Court shields government power at citizens' expense, a theme she has pressed with increasing intensity.
None of that is out of bounds. Dissent is the lifeblood of the Court. But when a justice moves from written legal argument to public personal attacks on a colleague's class background, she has left the arena of ideas and entered something else entirely.
It is worth pausing on what Kavanaugh actually wrote, since Sotomayor's characterization stripped it of context. His concurrence in Noem v. Perdomo addressed the practical reality of immigration enforcement encounters for legal residents. He wrote that such stops are "typically brief" and that individuals "may promptly go free after making clear to the immigration officers that they are U.S. citizens or otherwise legally in the United States."
That is a factual claim about how immigration stops work in practice, one that can be debated on the merits. Sotomayor chose instead to dismiss it by attacking the messenger's family background. As Breitbart noted, the remarks were seen as insulting Kavanaugh's background and privilege rather than engaging his legal reasoning.
The immigration enforcement context matters, too. The Supreme Court's broader docket this term has included major questions about birthright citizenship and the boundaries of federal immigration authority. These are serious legal disputes with real consequences for millions of people. They deserve serious legal argument, not ad hominem jabs at a colleague's parents.
Public apologies from sitting Supreme Court justices are extraordinarily uncommon. The Court operates on a culture of institutional restraint, at least in theory. Justices may savage each other's reasoning in written opinions, sometimes memorably, but the expectation is that the attacks stay on the page and stay on the law.
That Sotomayor felt the need to issue a formal statement through the Court's own communications apparatus suggests the internal reaction was swift and serious. The Washington Times reported that Sotomayor confirmed she had apologized directly to Kavanaugh, in addition to the public statement.
The Washington Examiner described the apology as "rare," and that word fits. The Court's credibility rests in part on the idea that its members can disagree without descending into personal contempt. Sotomayor's Kansas remarks tested that principle. Her apology acknowledged as much.
The episode also arrives at a moment when the Court faces intense external scrutiny. Political figures have not hesitated to publicly criticize the justices over contentious rulings. When the justices themselves begin trading personal shots in public forums, it becomes harder to argue that the institution stands above the political fray.
Sotomayor said the right words. She called her remarks inappropriate. She expressed regret. She said she apologized to Kavanaugh personally. That matters. Accountability matters, and she offered it.
But the apology does not erase the underlying impulse. Sotomayor's Kansas remarks reflected a view, common in progressive legal circles, that a justice's personal background should determine the weight of his legal reasoning. If your parents were professionals, your analysis of immigration enforcement carries less authority. If you haven't worked by the hour, you cannot understand what a brief stop means to someone who has.
That framework is the opposite of what the law is supposed to do. The whole point of legal reasoning is that it can be evaluated on its own terms, on logic, evidence, precedent, and text. The moment a justice tells a room of law students that a colleague's argument can be dismissed because of who his parents were, she has undermined the very process she is sworn to uphold.
The Court continues to handle a heavy and consequential docket, including qualified immunity disputes, death-row appeals, and First Amendment cases. The justices will need to work together on all of it. Sotomayor's apology was a necessary step toward making that possible.
An apology after the fact is better than none at all. But the best remedy for a justice who attacks a colleague's family background in public is not a statement, it is the discipline to never do it again.
