Sonia Sotomayor, Steven Spielberg honored by Harvard

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and director Steven Spielberg are among six people who have received Harvard University’s highest honor in the field of African and African-American studies.

Harvard honored its W.E.B. Du Bois medal winners at a ceremony Wednesday.

Sotomayor, the first Latina to serve on the high court, said she was deeply honored.

The Hutchins Center for African and African-American Research, which presents the medals, credited Sotomayor for speaking of her upbringing to inspire children trying to succeed in the face of adversity.

The center cited Spielberg’s filmmaking and his establishment of a foundation to record oral histories of survivors of the Holocaust and other genocides.

Presidential adviser Valerie Jarrett, playwright Tony Kushner, Georgia civil rights activist and U.S. Rep. John Lewis, and NBA Commissioner David Stern also received awards.