Justice Sonia Sotomayor Apologizes for Remarks About Justice Kavanaugh's Background

Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a rare public apology on Wednesday, expressing regret for “inappropriate” and “hurtful” remarks about fellow Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s background and his opinion in a contentious immigration case, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo.nbcnews +1 The court-released statement came eight days after her comments at the University of Kansas School of Law triggered an unusual public clash inside the Supreme Court.

Speaking in Kansas on April 7, Sotomayor criticized a 2025 concurrence in which Kavanaugh backed an emergency order lifting limits on immigration stops in the Los Angeles area, and suggested his upbringing left him disconnected from hourly workers subject to such policing.cbsnews +1 On April 15, she acknowledged going too far personally, saying she regretted her “hurtful comments” and had apologized directly to her colleague.nbcnews

What Sotomayor Said — And Why She Walked It Back

At the Kansas event, Sotomayor was asked about the court’s immigration rulings and singled out Kavanaugh’s explanation of why federal officers could consider “apparent ethnicity” as one factor in assessing whom to stop, so long as it was not the sole basis.theguardian Referring to the concurrence, she reportedly remarked, “This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour,” adding that some people “can’t understand our experiences, even when you tell them.”cbsnews +1

Those comments, widely interpreted as a jab at Kavanaugh’s class and life experience, broke with the justices’ usual practice of keeping personal criticisms private, even amid sharp legal disagreements. Her subsequent statement — “I made remarks that were inappropriate. I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague” — was described by court watchers as “unusual” and “rare” for a sitting justice.nbcnews +2 Conservative commentators and some legal analysts welcomed the apology as a necessary step to preserve basic collegiality.community

A Personal Rift Rooted in a Deep Legal Divide

The episode grew out of a fiercely contested 2025 dispute over large-scale ICE operations in the Los Angeles region, where plaintiffs alleged nearly 2,800 immigration-related arrests and racial profiling in so‑called “Kavanaugh stops.”theguardian +1 A district judge had barred officers from making detentive stops based solely on factors such as apparent race or ethnicity, speaking Spanish, being present at certain work sites, or holding low‑wage jobs.theguardian The Supreme Court’s emergency order lifted that injunction, with Kavanaugh writing that ethnicity alone could not justify a stop but could be a “relevant factor” among others.theguardian

Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented sharply, warning that the ruling allowed the government to “seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.”theguardian Immigrant‑rights groups condemned the decision as green-lighting profiling, while the Department of Homeland Security hailed a “major legal victory.”theguardian +1 Legal experts note that Sotomayor’s apology addressed the personal tone of her remarks, not her substantive critique of the concurrence or its effects on communities targeted by immigration enforcement.nbcnews +1

The Bigger Picture

The apology underscored how intensely personal the Supreme Court’s ideological battles have become as a 6–3 conservative majority reshapes law on immigration, presidential power, and civil rights.washingtonpost Public spats — from Jackson’s recent criticism of the court’s emergency docket to Clarence Thomas’s warnings about eroding civility — have fueled questions about institutional norms and legitimacy.wvtm13 +1 With the justices due back on the bench next week for arguments in more high‑stakes cases, the court must navigate not only its internal fractures but also growing scrutiny from a public increasingly attuned to how those divisions shape the law.

nbcnews CNN; washingtonpost Washington Post; cbsnews SCOTUSblog; cnn Politico; theguardian SupremeCourt.gov, Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo; san New York Times; wvtm13 NBC News; community Law.com; theguardian Bloomberg; harianbasis DHS statement; nationaltoday The Guardian.