Supreme Court justice tells Miami students they can "change the world"

• She was interviewed by Knight Foundation CEO Maribel Pérez Wadsworth.

Here is some of what she shared

🌎 On the power of young people

"We adults have messed up the world for you. If you're relying on the adults to fix it, it ain't gonna happen."

• "What you have to do is realize if you're a young person that you have not only the energy but you still have not been worn down by life. You should have the optimism necessary to change the world. That's what I want you to do, that's why I come speak to you."

⚖️ On not being a bystander

"Laws are made by whom? By people. So who changes laws? People. They don't get changed by being a bystander in life and letting things you don't like roll over you."

• If you want a better life, you have to understand that you have to do something to change its quality.

👂 On listening and disagreeing civilly

"People who you disagree with are not bad people, they have different ideas."

• "Good people do bad things. Good colleagues sometimes have silly thoughts, but it doesn't make them bad or silly."

💻 On information literacy

"Before you make choices about the direction anything should be going in this country, actually study it, and don't trust that any one news source is giving you the whole picture."

• "We're gonna lose our democracy [without information literacy]."

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say Sotomayor's mother, who died in 2021, lived in Margate.