 President Obama commissioned Sotomayor on the day of her confirmation ; Sotomayor was sworn in on August 8 , 2009 , by Chief Justice John Roberts . Sotomayor is the first Hispanic to serve on the Supreme Court . Some attention has been given to Justice Benjamin Cardozo – a Sephardic Jew believed to be of distant Portuguese descent – as the first Hispanic on the court when appointed in 1932 , but his roots were uncertain , the term " Hispanic " was not in use as an ethnic identifier at the time , and the Portuguese are generally excluded from its meaning . Sotomayor is among four women to have historically served on the Court , together with Sandra Day O 'Connor , Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan , the last of whom won confirmation a year after Sotomayor by a comparable 63 – 37 vote . Sotomayor 's appointment gives the Court a record six Roman Catholic justices serving at the same time . Sotomayor became one of the three youngest of the justices sitting on the Court , along with John Roberts and Elena Kagan . 
