Elena Kagan Fast Facts | News Channel 3-12

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Here’s a look at the life of Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. She is the fourth woman to serve on the US Supreme Court.

Personal

Date of birth: April 28, 1960

Birthplace: New York, New York

Birth name: Elena Kagan

Father: Robert Kagan, attorney

Mother: Gloria (Gittelman) Kagan, teacher

Education: Princeton University, AB, 1981, graduated summa cum laude; Worcester College, University of Oxford, M. Phil., 1983; Harvard University, JD, 1986, graduated magna cum laude

Religion: Jewish

Other facts

Was editor of the Harvard Law Review.

First female dean of Harvard University Law School.

Nicknamed “Shorty” by Thurgood Marshall. He was 6′ 2”; she is 6 feet tall.

Taught at the University of Chicago Law School at the same time as future US President Barack Obama.

Timeline

1986-1987 – Attorney for Judge Abner Mikva, United States Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

1988 – Clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

1989-1991 – Works at the law firm Williams & Connolly in DC.

1991-1995 – Professor at the University of Chicago School of Law.

1993 – Senator Joe Biden appoints Kagan as special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee. During this time, Kagan works on Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings.

1995-1996 – Associate advisor to US President Bill Clinton.

1997-1999 – Deputy Assistant to President Clinton for Domestic Policy. Kagan is also deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council.

1999 – Clinton nominates Kagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals. No hearings were ever scheduled and the nomination expired.

1999-2003 – Professor at Harvard Law School.

April 3, 2003 – March 20, 2009 – Dean of Harvard University Law School.

January 26, 2009 – Obama appoints Kagan as US Solicitor General.

March 19, 2009 – Confirmed by the U.S. Senate 61-31 to become the first woman to serve as U.S. Solicitor General, despite opposition from more than 75% of Republican senators.

May 10, 2010 – Obama nominates Kagan to be a justice of the US Supreme Court.

July 20, 2010 – The Senate Judiciary Committee votes 13-6 to send her nomination to the full Senate for consideration.

August 5, 2010 – The Senate confirms Kagan as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

August 7, 2010 – Kagan is sworn in as a justice of the 112th Supreme Court.

January 23, 2012 – The Supreme Court rejected a request from Freedom Watch, a political advocacy group, that Kagan should withdraw from upcoming appeals on the constitutionality of health care reform. Kagan was the Obama administration’s top lawyer and handled appeals to the Supreme Court when the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was passed.

June 22, 2015 – The Supreme Court rules in favor of Marvel Entertainment against Stephen Kimble in a case involving patent costs. The opinion, written by Kagan, contains several references to Spider-Man.

March 7, 2019 – Kagan appears before House lawmakers to express the court’s deep-seated opposition to broadcasting oral arguments. She recognizes the benefits to the public of seeing the nation’s highest court at work, but tells a House subcommittee that: “If seeing (the court) would come at the expense of how the setting worked, that would be a very bad buy. And I’m afraid that cameras will come at the expense of those costs.”

June 21, 2019 – Kagan says a 5-4 view that breaks along ideological lines “shatters over a hundred years of legal rulings.” The case centers on the fact that property owners can sue the government to claim that its actions constitute an unconstitutional “taking.” Under existing Supreme Court precedent, the plaintiff could not challenge the takeover until the state had an opportunity to pay just damages. The new decision means that the plaintiff can file a lawsuit in federal court once the seizure has occurred. In her dissent, Kagan says, “If a theory requires that precedent after precedent after precedent be declared wrong, that is a sign that the theory itself may be wrong.”

June 27, 2019 – Reads a dissent following the 5-4 decision that gerrymandering is beyond the court’s reach. “The practices challenged in these cases endanger our system of government. Part of the Court’s role in that system is to defend its foundations. Nothing is more important than free and fair elections.”

October 8, 2020 – Kagan is denying a Republican request to block Montana Governor Steve Bullock’s directive allowing counties to send mail-in ballots to all registered voters amid the coronavirus pandemic.

September 22, 2023 – Kagan said she thinks it would be a “good thing” if the Supreme Court were to amend a version of an ethics code that applies to lower court judges, and that she hopes the justices will make quick progress on the issue.

The CNN Wire
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