Justice Elena Kagan
Associate Justice U.S. Supreme Court
Elena Kagan was born in April 1960, in Manhattan, New York. She earned an A.B. from Princeton University and a B.C.L. from Worcester College, Oxford University. She obtained her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.
Kagan worked as a law clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. She entered into the private practice of law.
She became an assistant professor of law at Harvard and was tenured as a full professor four years later. Her interests focused on administrative law, including the role of the President of the United States. For four years she served as President Bill Clinton’s Associate White House Counsel and Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council.
She returned to Harvard, becoming the first female dean of the Harvard Law School where she served six years.
Kagan returned to government, where she served two years as Solicitor General of the United States under President Obama.
In May 2010, President Barack Obama nominated Kagan to succeed Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. She was confirmed by the Senate and sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts in August 2010. She is the first justice appointed without any prior experience as a judge since William Rehnquist in 1972. She is the fourth female justice in the Court’s history.
Justice Kagan has never married and has no children. She lists her faith as Conservative Judaism.
In the News…
Associate Justice Elena Kagan wrote the unanimous opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court allowing Mississippi street preacher Gabriel Oliver’s First Amendment challenge of a city ordinance to proceed.
Justice Kagan wrote, “Given that Olivier asked for only a forward-looking remedy—an injunction stopping officials from enforcing the city ordinance in the future—his suit can proceed, notwithstanding his prior conviction.”
The man was previously convicted for being “outside of a designated protest area” while preaching at a public amphitheater.
“Olivier seeks neither the reversal of, nor compensation for, his prior conviction,” Justice Kagan wrote. “And Olivier has since made clear that he has no interest in using a favorable judgment in this suit to later get his record expunged or avoid his conviction’s collateral effects. The suit is just meant to ensure that Olivier may return to the amphitheater to speak without fear of further punishment.”
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Justice Kagan today? You can let her know at:
The Honorable Elena Kagan
Justice of the United States Supreme Court
1 First Street NE
Washington, DC 20543
