Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar has been elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Older than the Constitution, the Academy is described in a California Courts news release as “one of the nation’s most prestigious honor societies that brings together leaders across a range of disciplines to address critical global challenges.”
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor joins Justice Cuéllar and just two others as newly elected fellows in the “Law” section of this year’s 213-member Academy class. Other members of this year’s class include former President Barack Obama, actor Tom Hanks, author Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Netflix CEO W. Reed Hastings, Jr.
Cuéllar is not the first California Supreme Court fellow of the Academy. Former Chief Justice Ronald George was inducted in 2009. (There might be more.)
Other previously elected Academy members include Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert Einstein, Robert Frost, Margaret Mead, Milton Friedman, and Martin Luther King, Jr.
