Less than a day after Attorney General Pam Bondi made a head-scratching claim about the First Amendment, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor delivered a brutal, thinly veiled response that left little room for misinterpretation.
Speaking Tuesday morning during a panel hosted by New York Law School, Sotomayor was asked about the growing tensions around free speech and the role of legal interpretation in polarized times. Her answer quickly became the headline.
“Every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself, that law school failed,” she said, according to Politico.
It didn’t take a legal scholar to connect the dots.
Just the night before, Bondi—who was appointed to a top post under Donald Trump and remains a loyal foot soldier in MAGA circles—went on a podcast hosted by Katie Miller (yes, the wife of Stephen Miller) and claimed hate speech isn’t protected speech under the First Amendment.
“There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie [Kirk], in our society,” Bondi said. “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech — and that’s across the aisle.”
For the record, “hate speech” is, in fact, protected by the First Amendment in the United States. There is no legal carve-out just because the content may be offensive or even reprehensible. That’s not a fringe take—that’s constitutional law 101.
Sotomayor, a graduate of Yale Law School and a consistent defender of civil liberties, made no effort to soften her words. The jab was sharp and the context was unmistakable.
While Sotomayor didn’t utter “Pam Bondi” out loud, the timing and precision of the comment spoke volumes. Bondi holds a degree from Stetson University College of Law in Deland, Florida—a school housed in what used to be a 1920s resort hotel. Make of that what you will.
Later in the discussion, Sotomayor widened the lens to reflect on the broader cultural and political climate.
“Think about all the things that you see in the world that are wrong, starting with two world wars — two wars and regional conflicts. But think of everything that’s happening in the United States, and you have to pause and say, we adults have really messed this up.”
It was a rare moment of candor from the bench—not a legal ruling, but a clear and cutting statement from one of the highest legal minds in the country. And in a single sentence, Sotomayor did what Bondi seemingly failed to do: uphold the basic tenets of the Constitution.
Watch Bondi’s remarks on free speech below:
