Tag Archives: Princeton University

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to Swear in U.S. Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris

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Sonia Sotomayor will make a special appearance at this week’s inauguration…

The 66-year-old Puerto Rican Supreme Court Justice will swear in U.S. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris on Wednesday, January 20, a ceremony in which the first woman of color to become vice president will take her oath of office from the first woman of color to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sonia Sotomayor

Harris chose Sotomayor for the task, according to a Harris aide who was confirming a report by ABC News. The vice president-elect and Justice Sotomayor have a shared background as former prosecutors. And Harris has called the justice a figure of national inspiration.

“Judge Sonia Sotomayor has fought for the voices of the people ever since her first case voting against corporations in Citizens United,” Ms. Harris wrote on Twitter in 2019. “As a critical voice on the bench, she’s showing all our children what’s possible.”

Justice Sotomayor, who was nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed to the Supreme Court in 2009, swore in Joseph R. Biden Jr. for his second term as vice president in January 2013 (first in a private ceremony and again in public the next day because of a quirk of the calendar).

Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York City, to Puerto Rican-born parents. She graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1976 and received her Juris Doctor from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for four and a half years before entering private practice in 1984. She played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board.

Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991; confirmation followed in 1992. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Her nomination was slowed by the Republican majority in the U.St Senate, but she was eventually confirmed in 1998. On the Second Circuit, Sotomayor heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases and wrote about 380 opinions. Sotomayor has taught at the New York University School of Law and Columbia Law School.

Peña to Receive Gala Tribute at New York Film Festival

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He’s been one of the masterminds behind retrospectives on artists like Michelangelo Antonioni and Sacha Guitry… And now Richard Peña is getting his own special tribute at the New York Film Festival.

The 59-year-old program director of the Film Society of Lincoln Center, who has served as the director of the New York Film Festival since 1988, will be the subject of a gala tribute to be presented for the first time during the festival’s historic 50th edition.

Richard Peña

At the Film Society, Peña has organized retrospectives of Robert Aldrich, Carlos Saura and Amitabh Bachchan, as well as major film series devoted to African, Israeli, Cuban, Polish, Hungarian, Arab, Korean, Swedish, Taiwanese and Argentine cinema.

In his tenure as the FSLC’s program director and selection committee chair of the New York Film Festival, Peña has upheld the organization’s gold standard for showcasing the best in world cinema, while dramatically expanding its horizons. From his encyclopedic surveys of Italian Neorealism and pre-revolutionary Iranian cinema, Peña’s knowledge and appetite for undiscovered cinematic territory have been an ongoing gift to New York moviegoers for the better part of three decades.

During that same time, he has overseen the Film Society’s expansion from an annual festival to a year-round film exhibitor with three screens and a rapidly expanding online presence.

In addition, he’s a Professor of Film Studies at Columbia University, where he specializes in film theory and international cinema, and from 2006-2009 was a visiting professor in Spanish at Princeton University. He’s also currently serving as the co-host of WNET/Channel 13’s weekly Reel 13.

“It is very fitting that we celebrate the 50th birthday of the New York Film Festival by honoring the man who has guided the festival’s artistic vision for the last 25 years. Richard Pena helped us discover directors like Pedro Almodovar, Abbas Kiarostami, Olivier Assayas, Lars Von Trier and Hou Hsiao-hsien, making an indelible contribution to film culture in New York City and around the world,” said FSLC’s Executive Director Rose Kuo. “We hope that his friends and colleagues will join us for a special evening to celebrate his achievements.”

Peña’s gala tribute will take place on Wednesday, October 10.

The 17-day New York Film Festival highlights the best in world cinema, featuring top films from celebrated filmmakers as well as fresh new talent.

U.S. Postal Service Honors Ferrer on Special Stamp

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He was the first Hispanic actor to win an Academy Award… And, now José Ferrer is getting the stamp of approval as a “distinguished American.”

The life and accomplishments of the Puerto Rican actor, director, writer, musician and producer—who died in 1992 at the age of 80—have been commemorated on a First-Class Forever stamp by the U.S. Postal Service as part of its Distinguished Americans stamp series.

Jose Ferrer Postage Stamp

The portrait featured on the stamp is an oil painting by Daniel Adel of Cold Spring, NY, based on a photograph of Ferrer under the art direction of Antonio Alcala of Alexandria, VA, who designed the stamp.

Ferrer—whose career spanned the worlds of theater, film, television and music—is considered to be one of the most accomplished talents of his generation. Along with being the first Latino to win an Oscar, Ferrer won several Tony Awards for his work on the Broadway stage and performed in more than 60 movies.

Jose Ferrer

Arguably his most famous role was that of Cyrano de Bergerac for which he won both a Tony Award for Best Actor (1947) and the Oscar for Best Actor (1950) for his film portrayal of the same role. He remains one of the few actors to ever win both awards for playing the same character on stage and on film.

“Today, the Postal Service is pleased and proud to bestow upon Jose Ferrer — a groundbreaking Latino movie, theater and television performer and the first Puerto Rican actor to succeed in Hollywood — a new commemorative Forever stamp,” said Marie Therese Dominguez, vice president, Government Relations and Public Policy for the U.S. Postal Service. “Throughout an acting career that spanned more than half a century, Ferrer played a wide range of roles on both Broadway and on the silver screen. His accomplishments extended to many other genres of entertainment. He acted on radio, performed as an opera singer; co-authored a libretto and was a composer. And, as if all this weren’t enough, Ferrer wrote for theater and television, and directed and produced numerous plays, both on and off Broadway.”

Ferrer’s family moved from Puerto Rico to New York City when he was six. Always an excellent student, he passed the Princeton University entrance exam at age 15, but was considered too young to attend and spent a year in a boarding school in Switzerland. He entered Princeton at age 16 and graduated with the class of 1933. He conducted postgraduate work at Columbia University with the intention of becoming a language teacher. However, he had discovered his love of acting while in college, and in 1935, made his first appearance on Broadway, a one-line part in the play, A Slight Case of Murder.