Sotomayor, who votes with the Court’s small liberal wing, said during a talk at Chicago’s Roosevelt University that she always tries “to find the good in everybody,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
“I look for the things that they do that are good,” Sotomayor said. “He cares about legal issues differently than me.”
Sotomayor also acknowledged how their perspectives on issues can differ.
“Clarence, who grew up very poor, believes that everyone is capable of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps,” she said. “I believe not everyone can reach their bootstraps.”
In June, the Supreme Court overturned the 1973 landmark decision Roe v. Wade, which federally protected a woman’s right to have an abortion. Critics fiercely condemned the six conservative justices, including Thomas, who voted in favor of the ruling. Some have even questioned the Court’s legitimacy in the wake of the decision, including Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat.
Thomas has faced extra heat for authoring a concurring opinion suggesting that the Court reconsider other Supreme Court precedents, such as ones that established rights to same-sex marriage and contraception, as well as a controversy involving his wife. Ginni Thomas, a conservative activist, has come under scrutiny in recent months over messages sent to former Trump administration officials and state lawmakers urging them to push back against the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Ginni Thomas met last month with the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot, when a mob of former President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to halt the certification of President Joe Biden’s election win. Clarence Thomas has faced pressure to recuse himself from cases related to the Capitol riot because of his wife’s actions.
Thursday was not the first time that Sotomayor has spoken positively about Clarence Thomas’ character, even as she does not back his legal rulings.
At an event hosted by the American Constitution Society in June, Sotomayor said that she has probably disagreed with Thomas “more than any other justice,” but the two have a friendship partly because he is someone “who cares deeply about the Court as an institution—about the people who work here.”
She and Thomas share a “common understanding about people and kindness,” she added.
“That’s why I can be friends with him and still continue our daily battle over our differences of opinions in cases,” she said. “You really can’t begin to understand an adversary unless you step away from looking at their views as motivated in bad faith.”
Newsweek reached out to Thomas for comment.
