On reflection I m not sure this does actually belong in the lead I don t know if I would call activist a judgmental word but I see Jmundo s point It is a somewhat inflammatory word To many esp conservatives activist is an insult I think activist is a fair factual description of some of Sotomayor s activities at Princeton and to a lesser extent at Yale but without the context that is present later in the article the sentence in the lede sort of leaps out and suggests something quite different from what it turns out to be i e sit ins protests 60s style activism militancy that sort of thing That s not what you mean by the word in this context but the reader won t know that before reading the full article which is getting pretty long Also it s not clear to me that this activism is important enough to make the lede anyway There s a lot of stuff in the article that s arguably more important than these particular episodes in her life especially at Yale where any activism really was a very small part of the story of her time there What do you think If you really wanted to keep this in the lede perhaps the wording could be changed e g She was an advocate for the hiring of Latino faculty at both schools or something like that But I m not sure it belongs