Background

Mrs. Kagan was born on April 28, 1960, in New York, United States. Born to Gloria and Robert Kagan, Elena Kagan grew up as the second of three children in a middle-class Jewish family living on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Kagan's mother was an educator, teaching students at Hunter College Elementary School. Her father was a longtime partner at the Manhattan law firm Kagan & Lubic, working primarily with tenant associations. Inspired by her father's work, Elena Kagan took an interest in law at an early age.

Education

Elena Kagan attended Hunter College High School, an all-girls school that she later cited as a formative experience in her life. "It was a very cool thing to be a smart girl, as opposed to some other, different kind," she says. "And I think that made a great deal of difference to me growing up and in my life afterward." Kagan graduated from the institution in 1977 and headed to Princeton University, where she studied history, all the while with law school as her ultimate goal.

In 1981 Mrs. Kagan graduated with Bachelor of Arts (summa cum laude). She also earned the Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Fellow scholarship from her alma mater, which allowed her to attend Worcester College in Oxford, England. She earned a Master of Philosophy degree at Worcester in 1983 before moving on immediately to Harvard Law School, where she became supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated with Juris Doctor (magna cum laude) in 1986.

Career

In 1987 Mrs. Kagan landed a job clerking for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The next year, she began another clerking job, this time for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court. During this time, she also worked for Michael Dukakis's 1988 presidential campaign, but after Dukakis lost his bid, Kagan headed to the private sector to work as an associate at the Washington, District of Columbia, law firm Williams & Connolly.

After three years at Williams & Connolly, Elena Kagan returned to academia - this time as a professor. In 1991 she began teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, and by 1995 she was a tenured professor of law. She left the school that same year, however, to work as associate counsel for President Bill Clinton. During her four years at the White House, Kagan was promoted several times: first to the position of Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy, and then to the role of Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council.

Before Clinton left office, he nominated Mrs. Kagan to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit. Her nomination languished with the Senate Judiciary Committee, however, and in 1999 Kagan returned to higher education. Starting as a visiting professor at Harvard Law, Elena Kagan quickly climbed the ladder from professor in 2001 to dean in 2003. During her five years as the dean of Harvard Law, Kagan made big changes at the institution, including faculty expansion, curriculum changes and the development of new campus facilities.

After fellow Harvard alumnus Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, he selected Elena Kagan for the role of solicitor general. In January 2009, Kagan received her endorsement from the previous solicitors general and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2009. Then President Obama nominated Mrs. Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court bench after his retirement. On August 5, 2010, she was confirmed by Senate with a vote of 63-37, making her the fourth woman to sit on the high court.

Kagan's first opinion, Ransom v. FIA Card Services, was filed on January 11, 2011. In an 8–1 decision, Kagan found that an individual declaring bankruptcy could not count expenses for a car he had paid off in his "applicable monthly expenses".

Kagan's opinion in Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC was decided on June 22, 2015. In the 6-3 decision in favor of Marvel, Kagan held that a patentee cannot receive royalties after the patent has expired. The opinion written by Kagan included several references to Spider-Man.

In 2015, Mrs. Kagan continued to make history when she sided with the majority in two landmark Supreme Court rulings. On June 25 she was one of the six justices to uphold a critical component of the 2010 Affordable Care Act - often referred to as Obamacare - in King v. Burwell. The decision allows the federal government to continue providing subsidies to Americans who purchase health care through "exchanges," regardless of whether they are state or federally operated.

On June 26, the Supreme Court handed down its second historic decision in as many days, with Elena Kagan again joining the majority (5-4) ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. Although Mrs. Kagan had made the statement during her 2009 confirmation hearings that "there is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage," her comments during oral arguments suggested she had perhaps changed her opinion. She was joined in the majority by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with Roberts reading the dissenting opinion this time.

Achievements

• 

  At 50 years old, Elena Kagan became the youngest member of the current court, as well as the only justice on the bench who has no previous judicial experience. In addition, her approval put three female justices - Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor - on the country's highest court for the first time in U.S. history.
  
  While a professor at Harvard, Mrs. Kagan authored an influential law review article on U.S. administrative law. The American Bar Association honoured it as the year's top scholarly article. In 2013, she was mentioned in the list of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People.
  
  In 2015, Elena Kagan played an instrumental role in two landmark Supreme Court rulings. First, she was one of the six justices to defend a critical component of the 2010 Affordable Care Act in King v. Burwell. The majority ruling made the Affordable Care Act difficult to undo. Secondly, the Supreme Court made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states in its historic decision of Obergefell v. Hodges, with Kagan joining the majority ruling.

Religion

In her adolescence, Elena Kagan disagreed with her Orthodox rabbi over aspects of her ‘bat mitzvah’ (the Jewish coming of age ritual for girls). She wanted her ritual to be as important as the ritual for boys, ‘bar mitzvah’. In the present day, she identifies with Conservative Judaism.

Politics

Initially, Elena Kagan was an opponent of the same-sex marriage, but later she supported the law accepting it.

Views

Quotations: "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."

"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."

"Suppose a State said that, Because we think that the focus of marriage really should be on procreation, we are not going to give marriage licenses anymore to any couple where both people are over the age of 55. Would that be constitutional?"

"I have no regrets. I don't believe in looking back. What I am proudest of? Working really hard... and achieving as much as I could."

"There is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage."

"My politics would be, must be, have to be, completely separate from my judgment."

"It was a very cool thing to be a smart girl, as opposed to some other, different kind. And I think that made a great deal of difference to me growing up and in my life afterward."

"Perhaps most important, judges will have goals. And because this is so, judges will often try to mold and steer the law in order to promote certain ethical values and achieve certain social ends. Such activity is not necessarily wrong or invalid."

"Like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant!"

"It is absolutely true that I have served in two Democratic administrations. You can tell something from me and my political views from that."

"The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the Court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people."

"American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope."

Connections

Justice Kagan is unmarried.

Father:

Robert Kagan

Mother:

Gloria Kagan

References

• Elena Kagan: A Biography
• Jewish Justices of the Supreme Court: From Brandeis to Kagan (Brandeis Series in American Jewish History, Culture, and Life)
• Uncertain Justice: The Roberts Court and the Constitution
• Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx/La juez que crecio en el Bronx (Spanish and English Edition)
• Elena Kagan: From Nominee to Supreme Court Justice (Laws and Legislation)