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Elena Kagan serves on the United States Supreme Court. She grew up in a middle class family in New York City, the middle child and only daughter of Robert Kagan, an attorney, and Gloria Gittelman Kagan, an elementary school teacher. Living in a third-floor apartment in Manhattan, her family emphasized the value of education and the law. She was an independent child who excelled academically and took an interest in her Bat Mitvah, and hers was the first formal one that had been conducted by her Synagogue. As she grew up, she took an avid interest in current events and the law and aspired to become a lawyer. After graduating from high school, she attended Princeton University and became editorial chair of "The Daily Princetonian," which was the prominent school paper. She graduated with top honors, earning a Bachelor of Arts in History. After Princeton, she attended Oxford University and earned a Master of Philosophy in 1983. She received a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, at Harvard Law School in 1986, where she was supervisory editor of the Harvard Law Review. In the pursuit of her academic credentials, she did not have much of a social life and didn't date.
After college, she became a law clerk for Abner Mikva, a liberal judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in 1987, and the following year, she was a clerk for Thurgood Marshall, a veteran Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court and one of its leading liberals, whom Kagan had the highest regard for. Afterwards, she stayed in Washington, D.C., and became an associate for the prominent law firm of Williams & Connelly, which specializes in litigation.
Kagan had long had interest in the world of academia and in 1991, she became a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School, achieving tenure four years later. In that capacity, she wrote some scholarly articles which attracted attention in public circles. Partly as a result, she returned to Washintgon, D.C., and got a job as an advisor in the White House Office of Domestic Policy during the second term of President Bill Clinton. Clniton's advisers were impressed with her work and in 1999, she was nominated to serve on the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, where she had once clerked. She looked forward to the appointment, but it wasn't acted on by the United States Senate.
After the election of President George W. Bush, she left the White House and attempted to return to the University of Chicago Law School, but was unable to get tenure. So she was hired as a visiting professor at Harvard Law School and quickly made a good impression for being intelligent and diligent. One of her scholarly articles, about Federal Administrative and Regulatory Law, was awarded by the American Bar Association as the top scholarly article of the year. In 2003, she became Dean of Harvard Law School, which was a great honor, but also was a challenging position at the time. There was student dissatisfaction with the University, which regarded the school and there was also ideological conflict among the staff, with charges of favoritism towards militant liberals and emphasis on political correctness. Kagan worked hard to resolve conflicts and promote consensus, and her efforts produced successful results and even some conservatives grudgingly credited her for improving the school and its climate. However, she also stirred up controversy when she banned military recruiters from the campus due to its refusal to let openly gay people serve in the military and criticized the policy strongly.
In 2009, she returned to the White House after the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. Obama nominated her as U.S. Solicitor General, a prestigious position which represents the Executive Branch of the government before the United States Surpeme Court, and she was confirmed with relative ease in spite of speculation that she was a future Supreme Court contender. Later that year, U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice David H. Souter announced his retirement and there was speculation that Kagan might be appointed, but Obama chose Sonia Sotomayor, a veteran judge on the United States Second Circuit Court of Appeals, instead. She continued to serve as Solicitor and advised the Obama Administration on several vital Constitutional issues.
In 2010, veteran U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced his retirement and after interviewing several prospects, President Obama nominated Kagan to serve. Her nomination stirred some controversy. Some accused her of advocating human cloning, based on advice she gave during the Clinton Administration, and a report on the history of Socialism she wrote as a student at Princeton was charged with being sympathetic to Socialism. Also, she had said in the past that nominees for the Federal Courts should be pressed on their views on controversial issues and this was used to grill her during her own confirmation hearing. She was able to handle herself in testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and make a good impression overall. She was ultimately confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a margin of 63 to 37, with the votes falling mostly on party lines.
She joined the court and made a positive impression on her colleagues with her friendly personality and was expected to join the liberal faction of the Court, just as Stevens and Souter had.
