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Justice Elena Kagan Esq.


Self Description

December 2010: "Elena Kagan, Associate Justice, was born in New York, New York, on April 28, 1960.  She received an A.B., summa cum laude, in 1981 from Princeton University.  She attended Worcester College, Oxford University, as Princeton’s Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Fellow, and received an M. Phil. in 1983.  In 1986, she earned a J.D. from Harvard Law School, graduating magna cum laude, where she was supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review.  She served as a law clerk to Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit from 1986-1987.  She served as a law clerk to Justice Thurgood Marshall of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1987 Term.  She worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly, LLP, from 1989-1991.  She became an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School in 1991 and a tenured professor of law in 1995.  From 1995-1999, she was associate counsel to President Clinton and then served as deputy assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council.  She joined Harvard Law School as a visiting professor in 1999 and became professor of law in 2001.  She was the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law and was appointed the 11th dean of Harvard Law School in 2003.  President Obama nominated her to serve as the 45th Solicitor General of the United States and she was confirmed on March 19, 2009.  President Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 10, 2010, and she assumed this role on August 7, 2010."

http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx

May 2010: "Elena Kagan was confirmed as the 45th Solicitor General of the United States in March 2009.

Prior to her confirmation, Elena Kagan was the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law and the 11th Dean of Harvard Law School. During her nearly six-year tenure as Dean, Harvard Law School expanded and enhanced its faculty, modernized its curriculum, developed new campus facilities, promoted public service, and improved the student experience.

A leading scholar of administrative law, Kagan came to Harvard Law School as a visiting professor in 1999 and became Professor of Law in 2001. While on the faculty, Kagan taught administrative law, constitutional law, civil procedure, and seminars on issues involving the separation of powers. She was appointed Dean of the Law School in 2003.

From 1995 to 1999, Kagan served in the White House, first as Associate Counsel to the President (1995-96) and then as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council (1997-99). In those positions she played a key role in the executive branch’s formulation, advocacy, and implementation of law and policy in areas ranging from education to crime to public health.

Kagan launched her academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where she became an assistant professor in 1991 and a tenured professor of law in 1995. In 1993, Kagan received the graduating students’ award for teaching excellence.

Kagan clerked for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1986 to 1987. The next year, she clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. She worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly from 1989 to 1991.

Kagan received her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Princeton in 1981. She attended Worcester College, Oxford, as Princeton’s Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Fellow, and received an M. Phil. in 1983. She then attended Harvard Law School, where she was supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude in 1986."

http://www.justice.gov/osg/meet-osg.html

Third-Party Descriptions

November 2011: 'Leckar says the government should not have the right “to take a device that enables them to engage in pervasive, limitless, cost-free surveillance.” But Kennedy stops him to ask how that’s any different from putting “30 deputies on this route and watch[ing] this person.” This leads Ginsburg to wonder how GPS tracking is any different than a surveillance camera. And Justice Elena Kagan (shooting range, opera, jury duty, shooting range) suggests that, “if somebody goes to London, almost every place that person goes there is a camera taking pictures.”'

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2011/11/lithwick_what_if_members_of_the_supreme_court_had_to_wear_gps_devices_.html

June 2011: "Justice Kagan countered that the main purpose of the law was to root out corruption and the appearance of corruption by encouraging candidates to participate in public financing systems, a goal the Supreme Court has endorsed."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/us/politics/28campaign.html

January 2011: "Justice Elena Kagan offered the hypothetical example of a contact lens solution that was fine for hundreds of thousands of users but had caused blindness in 10 people. That would not be statistically significant, Kagan said."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011100591.html

December 2010: 'The plaintiffs in this suit include a curious amalgam of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, immigrant and civil rights groups, and the Obama administration. They all argue that LAWA (as it's known) is invalid under the pre-emption doctrine, but they lost this argument at the district and appeals courts. Because the Ninth Circuit upheld LAWA, and because Elena Kagan had to recuse herself because of earlier involvement in the case, a 4-4 tie among the remaining justices means the law will stand, although he case will create no national precedent. After a tense hour of parsing and twisting and stretching the word "license" (more on this in a moment) it appears that this is precisely what will happen. It really helps to have nine justices at the Supreme Court.'

http://www.slate.com/id/2277292

June 2010: "The decision was a victory for Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who argued the case in February and whose confirmation hearings for a seat on the court are scheduled to start next week. But Chief Justice Roberts said the government had advanced a position that was too extreme and did not take adequate account of the free-speech interests at stake."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/22/us/politics/22scotus.html

May 2010: 'At the argument of the case in January, Solicitor General Elena Kagan, now President Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court, said the law was needed “to run a criminal justice system that does not itself endanger the public.” She said 105 people had been confined under the law.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/18/us/politics/18offenders.html

May 2010: "White House officials were so eager to squash any speculation that Elena Kagan was gay that they have ended up in a pre-feminist fugue, going with sad unmarried rather than fun single, spinning that she’s a spinster."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/opinion/19dowd.html

April 2010: "Ms. Kagan’s 1999 nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Bill Clinton never received a confirmation hearing in the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans. Such stalled nominations are not unusual. Democrats blocked the nomination of Miguel Estrada, a prominent conservative, to the District of Columbia Circuit in 2003. And the Senate never voted on President George Bush’s nomination of Chief Justice Roberts, then a Washington lawyer, to that court in 1992, when he was 37."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/01/us/politics/01kagan.html

May 2009: "Ms. Kagan’s history, by contrast, suggests a greater sympathy for executive interests. She worked in the White House under President Bill Clinton when he was at odds with a Republican Congress and seeking ways to achieve his agenda unilaterally."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/25/us/politics/25power.html

Relationships

RoleNameTypeLast Updated
Organization Executive (past or present) Student/Trainee (past or present) Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) Harvard University Organization May 18, 2010
Organization Head/Leader (past or present) Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) Organization May 27, 2009
Student/Trainee (past or present) Oxford University/University of Oxford Organization May 18, 2010
Student/Trainee (past or present) Princeton University Organization May 18, 2010
Member of (past or present) US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Organization Dec 17, 2010
Employee/Freelancer/Contractor (past or present) University of Chicago Organization May 18, 2010
Advisor/Consultant to (past or present) Subordinate of (past or present) President William ("Bill") Jefferson Clinton Person May 27, 2009
Succeeded by Prof. Neal Katyal Esq. Person Dec 17, 2010
Supervisor of (past or present) Judge Thurgood Marshall Esq. Person May 18, 2010
Subordinate of (past or present) Abner J. Mikva Esq. Person May 18, 2010
Colleague/Co-worker of (past or present) Succeeded by Prof. Martha L. Minow Esq. Person May 1, 2010
Appointed/Selected by Pres. Barack Hussein Obama Esq. Person May 27, 2009

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Feb 21, 2012 Justices Take Up Race as a Factor in College Entry

QUOTE: In a 2003 decision that the majority said it expected would last for 25 years, the Supreme Court allowed public colleges and universities to take account of race in admission decisions...By agreeing to hear a major case involving race-conscious admissions at the University of Texas, the court thrust affirmative action back into the public and political discourse after years in which it had mostly faded from view.

 New York Times
Nov 08, 2011 Which Way Privacy? The Supreme Court asks whether the government can put a GPS device on your car without a warrant.

QUOTE: The warrant expired after 10 days, but the police nevertheless used the GPS to monitor everywhere he drove, every 10 seconds, for 28 days....Jones tried to have his conviction set aside, arguing that warrantless GPS surveillance violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable government searches and seizures. The government replied that GPS tracking is no different from police observing activity in public spaces and roadways, which is not protected under the Constitution.

 Slate
Jun 27, 2011 Justices Strike Down Arizona Campaign Finance Law

QUOTE: the Supreme Court on Monday struck down an Arizona law that provided escalating matching funds to candidates who accept public financing...The majority said the law violated the First Amendment rights of candidates who raise private money.

 New York Times
Jan 18, 2011 In Knotty State Secrets Case, Justices Ponder Telling Litigants to ‘Go Away’

QUOTE: The contractors sued, asking to keep the money and seeking $1.2 billion more. They said their work had been frustrated by the government’s failure to share classified technology. The government disputed that, but would not explain why, invoking the state secrets privilege.

 New York Times
Jan 11, 2011 Court weighs disclosures to stockholders

QUOTE: Stockholders said Matrixx had been warned about such a possibility since 1999, but even after lawsuits were filed the company had issued statements saying such allegations were "completely unfounded and misleading."...Matrixx said there was no attempt to deceive investors. The number of complaints about the product was "statistically insignificant"....

 Washington Post
Dec 08, 2010 LAWA Land: The Supreme Court hears about Arizona's other controversial immigration law.

QUOTE: The Supreme Court busies itself today with that law's Mini-Me, the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act, which goes much further than federal immigration law in sanctioning state employers who hire illegal workers. Both today's case and the one the court will inevitably hear about SB 1070 test the same general proposition: Does federal immigration law pre-empt—or preclude—the states from passing their own, tougher immigration laws?

 Slate
Jun 21, 2010 Court Affirms Ban on Aiding Groups Tied to Terror

QUOTE: In a case pitting free speech against national security, the Supreme Court on Monday upheld a federal law that makes it a crime to provide “material support” to foreign terrorist organizations, even if the help takes the form of training for peacefully resolving conflicts.

 New York Times
May 18, 2010 All the Single Ladies

QUOTE: White House officials were so eager to squash any speculation that Elena Kagan was gay that they have ended up in a pre-feminist fugue, going with sad unmarried rather than fun single, spinning that she’s a spinster.

 New York Times
May 17, 2010 Extended Civil Commitment of Sex Offenders Is Upheld

QUOTE: In a broad endorsement of federal power, the Supreme Court on Monday ruled that Congress has the authority under the Constitution to allow the continued civil commitment of sex offenders after they have completed their criminal sentences. The 7-to-2 decision touched off a heated debate among the justices on a question that has lately engaged the Tea Party movement and opponents of the new health care law: What limits does the Constitution impose on Congress’s power to legislate on matters not specifically delegated to it in Article I?

 New York Times
Apr 30, 2010 Rare Breed Now: A Justice Who Wasn’t a Judge

QUOTE: Ms. Kagan has a glittering résumé. But it lacks the one qualification that every member of the current Supreme Court possesses: past judicial service. The possibility that she will be nominated has ignited a debate over what scholars call “the norm of prior judicial experience.”

 New York Times
Nov 08, 2009 Supreme Court to decide: What kind of innovations get a patent?: The Supreme Court on Monday takes up this fundamental question in patent law. The answer holds billion-dollar implications for the US economy.

QUOTE: The US Supreme Court on Monday takes up the most fundamental question in patent law: Which innovations deserve the protection of a patent?

 Christian Science Monitor
Nov 03, 2009 At Supreme Court: Can prosecutors be sued for framing defendants? Two African-American men wrongly imprisoned for 25 years filed a lawsuit against prosecutors for fabricating evidence against them...

QUOTE: The US Supreme Court on Wednesday is set to consider an unusual question: Do Americans who have been framed by unscrupulous prosecutors for crimes they did not commit have a right to sue the prosecutors when the fraud is finally exposed?

 Christian Science Monitor
Sep 29, 2009 The Old Secular Cross?: High Court to Consider Church-State Implications of Mojave Cross

QUOTE: If the court reaches the constitutional issues at hand, (of the Mojave Cross) all sides agree it could provide clarity to the court's blurry rules on church-and-state separations. It could also carry important implications for the fate of war memorials around the country that feature religious imagery

 Washington Post
Jun 22, 2009 Supreme Court to review sex offender law: The top court agrees to assess a law that lets the US government indefinitely detain sex offenders even after they have served their sentences.

QUOTE: The issue [sex offender law] arises in the case of a man who has been confined to a North Carolina federal prison for more than two years after completing his three-year sentence for receiving child pornography. The man, Graydon Earl Comstock, has no firm release date.

 Christian Science Monitor
May 24, 2009 New Justice Could Hold the Key to Presidential Power

QUOTE: “We’re losing one of the court’s strongest leaders on the side of limiting executive power to reasonable bounds. If the person who replaces Souter is different than him, the balance of power may shift.”

 New York Times