Elena Kagan Biography

Elena Kagan Is the United States Supreme Court’s, Associate Justice. She was nominated in May 2010 by President Barack Obama and confirmed in the same year by the Senate in August. She is the fourth woman to serve as the Supreme Court’s justice born April 28, 1960, and raised in New York City. Kagan became the United States ‘ first female Solicitor General in 2009. President Obama nominated her to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy resulting from Justice John Paul Stevens ‘ imminent retirement.

The U.S.Senate confirmed her appointment by a 63-37 vote. She is considered part of the liberal wing of the Court, but she tends to be one of that group’s more moderate judges. In Cooper v. Harris, a landmark case that restricts the allowable uses of race in drawing congressional districts, she wrote the majority opinion.

Elena Kagan Age

Elena Kagan Children

Kagan has not revealed if she has any children.

Elena Kagan Family

Kagan was born in Manhattan, Robert Kagan’s second of three children, an attorney representing tenants trying to stay in their homes, and Gloria Kagan, who taught elementary school at Hunter College. Both her parents were Russian immigrants ‘ children. There are two brothers in Kagan, Marc, and Irving.

Elena Kagan Husband | Elena Kagan Married | Is Elena Kagan A Lesbian

Kagan has never been married.

Elena Kagan Education

Kagan attended high school at Hunter College where she taught her mother. The school had a reputation as one of the high school girls ‘ most elite learning institutions, attracting students from across New York City. Kagan emerged as one of the most remarkable students of the school. She was elected president of the government of the students and served on an advisory committee of the student-faculty. Kagan attended Princeton University after graduating, where she was awarded a B.A. History summa cum laude in 1981.

She was especially attracted to American history and research on archives. She wrote a senior thesis titled “To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900–1933” under the historian Sean Wilentz. The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after the decline of socialism, still want to change America. “Wilentz says Kagan did not mean defending socialism, noting that she” was interested in it. Studying something is not endorsing it.

In 1980, Kagan received the 1960 Graduating Scholarship Daniel M. Sachs Class from Princeton,[b] one of the university’s highest general awards. This allowed her to study at Oxford’s Worcester College. Kagan wrote a thesis on “The Development and Erosion of the American Exclusionary Rule: A Study in Judicial Method” as part of her graduation requirement. She presented the Supreme Court with a critical look at the exclusionary rule and its evolution— especially the Warren Court.[26] She was awarded a Master of Philosophy in Politics at Oxford in 1983.

Supreme Court Elena Kagan | Elena Kagan Nomination

Before Obama’s election, when a Democratic president was elected in 2008, Kagan was the subject of media speculation as a potential Supreme Court nominee. When Associate Justice David H. Souter announced his upcoming retirement, Obama had his first Supreme Court vacancy to fill in 2009. Senior Obama advisor David Axelrod later recounted that Antonin Scalia told him he hoped Obama would nominate Kagan due to her intelligence while searching for a new justice. The Associated Press reported on May 13, 2009, that Obama, among others, was considering Kagan.[83] Obama announced on May 26, 2009, that he had chosen Sonia Sotomayor.

Obama nominated Kagan to the Supreme Court on May 10, 2010. In an open letter in early June, the deans of more than one-third of the law schools in the country, 69 people in total, endorsed the nomination. She lauded what she called her coalition-building skills and “doctrine-policy understanding” as well as her written legal analysis record.

Elena Kagan Religion

The first dissent of Kagan came in the Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn First Amendment case, 563 U.S. 125 (2011). Writing for the liberal wing, she challenged the creation by the majority of an exception to the First Amendment Establishment Clause. The majority held that taxpayers in Arizona could not challenge tax credits for those who donate to groups providing scholarships to religious schools, distinguishing between how the court handles tax credits and grants. Kagan considered this distinction “arbitrary” because it is possible to use tax credits and grants to achieve the same goals. She viewed the majority’s decision as creating a loophole for governments to fund religion.

Elena Kagan Justice

Elena Kagan offers new law students advice — and a shot of confidence

Kagan was “petrified” when a Law School professor called on her first day of class. She blew her first exams, which situated her in “the bottom third of the class.”

And then, in her second semester at Harvard Law School, things started to change.

“When I first came here in 1983, I was very excited and very nervous,” Kagan, J.D. ’86, told a room packed with more than 500 students in Wasserstein Hall, with another 300 seated in an overflow room. “I hadn’t a clue of why I was here really, and I hadn’t the faintest idea of where it would lead to. I went to Law School to keep my options open and because I couldn’t think of anything else. Notwithstanding that I went to Law School for all the wrong reasons, when I got to Law School, I loved it. I really loved it.”

With refreshing candor and good humor, the Supreme Court associate justice shared anecdotes about her early days as a 1L in a conversation with former HLS Dean Martha Minow, the 300th Anniversary University Professor at Harvard, during an orientation program Thursday morning at HLS. Despite her rocky start, Kagan would eventually graduate magna cum laude, taking a first major step toward a seat on the bench of the nation’s highest court.

Dean John F. Manning was pleased to have Kagan talk to the new class, as he knew from experience that it would help them feel more relaxed and confident about themselves as their first semester was about to begin. Kagan, who was named HLS’s first female dean in 2003, has taken part in the orientation program for the past few years.

“I’m delighted that Justice Kagan returned again to Harvard Law School to teach our students and reconnect with our community,” said Manning, who attended HLS at the same time as Kagan. “She is not only a brilliant lawyer and jurist, but also a generous and funny teacher, colleague, and friend.”

Kagan spoke at length about her life as a law student and her journey to the high court. She offered advice on how to have a fulfilling legal career, but she also reminded students of the responsibility and privilege that comes with being a lawyer.

Elena Kagan Quotes

• Law matters because it keeps us safe, because it protects our most fundamental rights and freedoms, and because it is the foundation of our democracy.
• I think some justices are great because they have extraordinary wisdom, they have an understanding of how to apply the law in their times in a way that’s completely consistent with the text of the law, and the purposes of the law, and that’s also completely right for the times in which they live in.
• I’ve led a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system. And what I’ve learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. I’ve learned that we make progress by listening to each other, across every apparent political or ideological divide.
• What my political views or my constitutional views are just doesn’t matter.

Elena Kagan Political Party

she is of Republican.

Elena Kagan Ethnicity

Kagan is an American.

Elena Kagan Ideology | Elena Kagan Political Ideology

Since then, Kagan has garnered a reputation for being the justice most in touch with pop culture and technology. Kagan also joined the majority in two historic decisions in 2015. The first was King v. Burwell, where the court held that the Affordable Care Act was constitutional.