 Sotomayor was a member of the Second Circuit Task Force on Gender , Racial and Ethnic Fairness in the Courts . In October 2001 , she presented the annual Judge Mario G. Olmos Memorial Lecture at UC Berkeley School of Law ; titled " A Latina Judge 's Voice " ; it was published in the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal the following spring . In the speech , she discussed the characteristics of her Latina upbringing and culture and the history of minorities and women ascending to the federal bench . She said the low number of minority women on the federal bench at that time was " shocking " . She then discussed at length how her own experiences as a Latina might affect her decisions as a judge . In any case , her background in activism did not necessarily influence her rulings : in a study of 50 racial discrimination cases brought before her panel , 45 were rejected , with Sotomayor never filing a dissent . An expanded study showed that Sotomayor decided 97 cases involving a claim of discrimination and rejected those claims nearly 90 percent of the time . Another examination of Second Circuit split decisions on cases that dealt with race and discrimination showed no clear ideological pattern in Sotomayor 's opinions . 
