NEW YORK − Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Sept. 16 jumped into the free speech debate swirling around the killing of Charlie Kirk.

“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 at event on civic education.

Sotomayor did not identify any particular lawyer. But her remarks came a day after Attorney General Pam Bondi vowed to go after “those who engage in hate speech.”

"There's free speech and then there's hate speech,” Bondi said Sept. 15 on Katie Miller’s podcast, “and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society.”

Vice President JD Vance, who has a law degree from Yale Law School, has said anyone celebrating Kirk’s death should be fired from their jobs.

“Call them out, and hell, call their employer,” Vance said Sept. 15 when he guest-hosted the podcast Kirk started.

Sotomayor spoke at New York Law School at an event celebrating Constitution and Citizenship Day.

She called social media “one of the largest causes of misinformation on the internet” and said Americans need to know the difference between a president and a king.

"I think if people understood these things from the beginning they would be more informed as to what would be important in a democracy in terms of what people can or should not do," she said.

Her remarks on free speech came in response to a question about the role of law schools in instilling civic awareness.

Sotomayor called civics a critical part of learning the law.

“Because it is for that system that you're working as a lawyer,” she said. “And if you don't understand how the system affects you and your clients, then you will never be in a position either to advocate for change or even to represent in a fulsome way.”

Bondi has been criticized from both the left and the right for her comments about hate speech.

"Someone needs to explain to Ms. Bondi that so-called 'hate speech,' repulsive though it may be, is protected by the First Amendment. She should know this," Brit Hume, a conservative commentator, wrote on X.

Bondi was undeterred.

"Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It's a crime," Bondi posted on X. "For far too long, we've watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Don't 'criminalize free speech,' Justice Sotomayor says after Bondi hate speech vow

Reporting by Maureen Groppe and Dan Morrison, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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