Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a public apology to Justice Brett Kavanaugh on Wednesday for remarks she made criticizing his opinion in an immigration-related case during a recent speaking engagement.

The apology came after Sotomayor spoke at the University of Kansas School of Law last week, where she made what she later characterized as inappropriate personal criticism of her conservative colleague while discussing his views in the immigration case.

Sotomayor acknowledged that her comments were "hurtful" and represented an unusual breach of the typically collegial public discourse maintained among justices, even when they disagree on legal matters. The liberal justice said she referred to a disagreement with Kavanaugh in a prior case but recognized her remarks crossed appropriate boundaries.

Meanwhile, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court's newest member, has separately criticized the conservative majority's handling of emergency orders during the Trump administration. Jackson characterized roughly two dozen emergency-docket rulings from last year as "scratch-paper musings" that enabled controversial Trump policies on immigration and federal funding after lower courts had found them likely illegal.

The incidents highlight ongoing tensions within the Supreme Court as justices navigate ideological divisions while maintaining institutional relationships. Public apologies between justices are extremely rare, making Sotomayor's statement particularly noteworthy in the court's typically formal environment.