Elena Kagan
Biographical Information
"Elena Kagan was confirmed as the 45th Solicitor General of the United States in March 2009.
Prior to her confirmation, Elena Kagan was the Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law and the 11th Dean of Harvard Law School. During her nearly six-year tenure as Dean, Harvard Law School expanded and enhanced its faculty, modernized its curriculum, developed new campus facilities, promoted public service, and improved the student experience.
A leading scholar of administrative law, Kagan came to Harvard Law School as a visiting professor in 1999 and became Professor of Law in 2001. While on the faculty, Kagan taught administrative law, constitutional law, civil procedure, and seminars on issues involving the separation of powers. She was appointed Dean of the Law School in 2003.
From 1995 to 1999, Kagan served in the White House, first as Associate Counsel to the President (1995-96) and then as Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council (1997-99). In those positions she played a key role in the executive branch’s formulation, advocacy, and implementation of law and policy in areas ranging from education to crime to public health.
Kagan launched her academic career at the University of Chicago Law School, where she became an assistant professor in 1991 and a tenured professor of law in 1995. In 1993, Kagan received the graduating students’ award for teaching excellence.
Kagan clerked for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1986 to 1987. The next year, she clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. She worked as an associate in the Washington, D.C. law firm of Williams & Connolly from 1989 to 1991.
Kagan received her bachelor’s degree, summa cum laude, from Princeton in 1981. She attended Worcester College, Oxford, as Princeton’s Daniel M. Sachs Graduating Fellow, and received an M. Phil. in 1983. She then attended Harvard Law School, where she was supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated magna cum laude in 1986."
--Biography from United States Department of Justice, Office of Solicitor General website: http://www.justice.gov/osg/ 
Nomination Information
- Confirmed by Senate 63-37 (August 5, 2010) THOMAS
- CSPAN Confirmation Hearing Transcripts and Video. Day 4 (July 1, 2010)
- CSPAN Confirmation Hearing Transcripts and Video. Day 3 (June 30, 2010): Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
- CSPAN Confirmation Hearing Transcripts and Video. Day 2 (June 29, 2010): Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
- CSPAN Confirmation Hearing Transcripts and Video. Day 1 (June 28, 2010): Part 1 | Part 2
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, Continuation of the Nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, July 1, 2010. (Webcast )
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, Continuation of the Nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, June 30, 2010. (Webcast )
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, Continuation of the Nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, June 29, 2010. (Webcast )
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, The Nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, June 28, 2010. (Webcast, Witness Testimony and Member Statements )
- White House Blog (with video) May 10, 2010.
- Remarks by the President and Solicitor General Elena Kagan at the Nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court May 10, 2010.
- THOMAS Presidential Nominations page for Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
- U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary Nominations page
Articles
- Conversation between Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg & Dean Elena Kagan, 32 HARV. J. L. & Gender 237 (2009) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, The Harvard Law School Revisited: Reflecting on Louis D. Brandeis's Harvard Law School Reflections, 11 GREEN BAG (n.s.) 475 (2008) (Green Bag )
- Elena Kaga, Moderator of Panel Three: Contours of Judicial Deference to Military Personnel Policies, in 14 DUKE J. GENDER L. & POL'Y 1173 (2007) (Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy Website )
- Elena Kagan, In Memoriam: Clark Byse, 121 HARV. L. REV. 454 (2007) (Harvard Law Review Website ; HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, Richard Posner, the Judge, 120 HARV. L. REV. 1121 (2007) (Harvard Law Review Website ; HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, In Memoriam: David Westfall, 119 HARV. L. REV. 947 (2006) (Harvard Law Review Website ; HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, Women and the Legal Profession–A Status Report, 61 RECORD OF THE ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 37 (2006) (Association of the Bar of the City of New York website )
- Elena Kagan, Presidential Administration, 114 HARV. L. Rev. 2245 (2001)(HeinOnline - login may be required)
- David J. Barron and Elena Kagan, Chevron's Nondelegation Doctrine, 2001 SUP. CT. REV. 201 (2001) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, When a Speech Code Is a Speech Code: The Stanford Policy and the Theory of Incidental Restraints, 29 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 957 (1996) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, Private Speech, Public Purpose: The Role of Governmental Motive in First Amendment Doctrine, 63 U. CHI. L. REV. 413 (1996) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, Confirmation Messes, Old and New (Book Review), 62 U. CHI. L. REV. 919 (1995) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, Regulation of Hate Speech and Pornography after R.A.V., 60 U. CHI. L. REV. 873 (1993) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, For Justice Marshall, 71 TEX. L. REV. 1125 (1993) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, A Libel Story: Sullivan then and now (Book Review), 18 L. & SOC. INQUIRY 197 (1993) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, The Changing Faces of First Amendment Neutrality: R.A.V. v St. Paul, Rust v Sullivan, and the Problem of Content-Based Underinclusion, 1992 SUP. CT. REV. 29 (1992) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
- Note, Certifying Classes and Subclasses in Title VII Suits, 99 HARV. L. REV. 619 (1986) (HeinOnline - login may be required)
Other Writings
- Elena Kagan, Office of the White House Counsel in CHANGE FOR AMERICA: A PROGRESSIVE BLUEPRINT FOR THE 44TH PRESIDENT (Mark Green and Michele Jolin, eds.: 2009).
- Elena Kagan, Foreword in TRANSFORMATION IN AMERICAN LEGAL HISTORY: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF PROFESSOR MORTON J. HORWITZ (Daniel Hamilton and Alfred Brophy, eds.: 2009).
- Elena Kagan, Libel and the First Amendment (Update), ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION, SUPPLEMENT II (Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst, eds.: 2000). (Gale Virtual Reference Library - login may be required)
- Elena Kagan, Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc. 501 U.S. 496 (1991), ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION (Leonard W. Levy and Kenneth L. Karst, eds.: 2000). (Gale Virtual Reference Library - login may be required)
Congressional Documents and Links
- THOMAS Presidential Nominations page for Elena Kagan to be Solicitor General of the United States
- U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary Nominations page for Solicitor General - Elena Kagan
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, Confirmation Hearings on the Nominations of Thomas Perrelli Nominee to Be Associate Attorney General of the United States and Elena Kagan Nominee to Be Solicitor General of the United States: Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Washington: US G.P.O., 2009. Serial J-111-81. (PDF )
- Written Questions of Chariman Patrick Leahy for Elena Kagan, Nominee to Be Solicitor General of the United States, Submitted February 10, 2009. (PDF )
- THOMAS Presidential Nominations page for Elena Kagan to be United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia Circuit
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, The Nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, June 28, 2010. (Webcast, Witness Testimony and Member Statements )
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, Continuation of the Nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, June 29, 2010. (Webcast )
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, Continuation of the Nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, June 30, 2010. (Webcast )
- United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary, Continuation of the Nomination of Elena Kagan to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, July 1, 2010. (Webcast )
Elena Kagan as Solicitor General
Elena Kagan in the Clinton White House
Additional Information