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 Supreme Court opinion remanding social media moderation cases that challenge Florida and Texas laws back to lower courts for further First Amendment analysis.
“To make that judgment,” Justice Kagan wrote, “a court must determine a law’s full set of applications, evaluate which are constitutional and which are not, and compare the one to the other. … Neither court performed that necessary inquiry.”
“The questions of whether, when, and how to regulate online entities, and in particular the social-media giants, are understandably on the front-burner of many legislatures and agencies,” Justice Kagan said, adding that “those government actors will generally be better positioned than courts to respond to the emerging challenges social-media entities pose.”
“But courts still have a necessary role in protecting those entities’ rights of speech, as courts have historically protected traditional media’s rights,” the opinion stated.
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
