March 8, 2019

Sotomayor, Jane Fonda inducted into National Women's Hall of Fame

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and actress Jane Fonda were inducted Friday in the annual National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Civil rights activist Angela Davis; Native American lawyer Sarah Deer; retired Air Force fighter pilot Nicole Malachowski; the late suffragist and cartoonist Rose O’Neill; New York Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, who died last year; composer Laurie Spiegel; and AIDS researcher Flossie Wong-Staal were the other 2019 inductees.

“We are pleased to add these American women to the ranks of inductees whose leadership and achievements have changed the course of American history,” hall of fame President Betty Bayer said at the announcement ceremony Friday, which coincided with International Women’s Day. 

Sotomayor made history in 2009 after she was confirmed as the Supreme Court’s first Hispanic justice. She was nominated by former President Obama that year and has consistently sided with the court’s liberal wing. 

Fonda has been a world-renowned actress since the 1960s and has been a vocal advocate for a range of political causes, including her opposition to the Vietnam War and various feminist causes.

The women will formally be inducted into the hall of fame in September outside Seneca Falls, the city in upstate New York credited by many to be the birthplace of the women’s rights movement. They join 276 other women who have been inducted since 1970.

The inductees are nominated by the public and judged by experts whose knowledge spans an array of fields.

Article originally published be The Hill

Sotomayor, Jane Fonda inducted into National Women's Hall of Fame