Its a crude and quick wrap up, but here is a brief history on Elena Kagan and a snapshot of what you are going to hear A LOT about over he next two months. Get your pad and pencil out...
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. Kagan taught administrative law, constitutional law, civil procedure, and seminars on issues involving the separation of powers. 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, as 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.
Education
• Princeton University A.B. 1981, History
• Worcester College, Oxford M. Phil. 1983
• Harvard Law School J.D. 1986
• Professor of Law, University of Chicago Law School, 1995-97
• Visiting Professor of Law, 1999-2001
• Professor of Law, 2001
• Charles Hamilton Houston Professor of Law, 2003
• Dean of the Faculty of Law, 2003-2009
Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council, 1997-99; Associate Counsel to the President, 1995-96
Kagan is the first woman to hold the office of solicitor general in the Justice Department, often referred to informally as the "10th justice." The solicitor general argues for the government in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
The former dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan has a distinguished resume that includes stints as a professor of constitutional and administrative law at both Harvard and the University of Chicago and four years in the Clinton administration. There was one obvious hole in her resume before landing the Obama administration job: she had never argued a case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
But Kagan is one of the country's top constitutional and administrative law scholars. After years of working as a professor, Kagan became the Harvard Law School dean in 2003 and jumpstarted a transformation that added quality-of-life-activities for the students and included hiring dozens of top-notch professors, including some conservative.
Kagan grew up on Manhattan's West Side, and went to Princeton University, where she earned an A.B. in history in 1981. After graduating, she received a Sachs scholarship and went to Oxford, where she received a master of philosophy before attending Harvard Law School.Biography on Harvard Law School Web site(1)Biography on Harvard Law School Web site Though Kagan's professors later praised her as one of their top students, she was not at the top of her class after her first semester as a law student.
After working for Michael Dukakis' 1988 presidential campaign, she took a job at the Washington D.C. law firm Williams & Connolly, where she worked for three years. In 1991, she began her work in academia, taking a job with the University of Chicago as an assistant professor. Four years later, she became a tenured professor, and, in the same year, left the school to work in the Clinton administration, where she spent four years.
Without digging into her speeches and personal history, (learning how she feels about average latina women versus average white suburban men) we took a quick peek at what we thing the Conservative Pundits are going to scream and holler and berate her about...These are the first draft ISSUES...
ISSUE No. 1 Kagan started as Clinton's associate counsel and eventually spent a couple years as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy and deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council."President-elect Obama announces key Department of Justice posts," Much of Kagan's work in the White House focused on crafting policy, not law.
ISSUE No. 2 Despite her limited experience in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, her name is often mentioned as a potential nominee to replace Justice John Paul Stevens. If nominated and confirmed, she would be the fourth woman to sit on the high court.
ISSUE No. 3 Kagan's ideas on how to improve a law school have been widely studied, and often praised. But her legal opinions have received much less scrutiny. The New York Times described Kagan's legal writings as "dense, hedged and moderate
ISSUE No. 4 Kagan will be scrutinized about her opinion on executive power, an issue that played a key role in U.S. Supreme Court cases during the George W. Bush administration. In a 2001 Harvard Law Review article, Kagan said that the idea of the "unitary executive" expanded under President Clinton. But "I do not espouse the Unitarian position," Kagan wrote. "President Clinton's assertion of directive authority over administration, more than President Reagan's assertion of a general supervisory authority, raises serious constitutional questions.
Kagan is often credited with overhauling the image of Harvard Law School, from a factory that churns out talented lawyers to a place that cultivates some of the best legal minds in the country.
ISSUE No. 5 During an April Fool's issue, the law school newspaper ran a headline saying, "Dean Kagan hires every law professor in the country." She hired more professors with public law backgrounds (going against Harvard's image as a corporate lawyer factory), expanded the clinic program and increased financial aid. "Public service is a very personal subject for me," said Kagan. "I spent a good part of my legal career in government and I came to value very highly a certain spirit of public service and what people who possess that spirit can accomplish. Public service should be a vitally important part of every lawyer's life
ISSUE No. 6 Kagan was hired to be dean of Harvard Law School by Lawrence Summers, who was Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, went on to serve as president of Harvard University and is now an economic adviser to Barack Obama. She, in turn, hired Cass Sunstein away from the University of Chicago Law School. Sunstein, who is married to Obama foreign policy adviser Samantha Power, is head of Obama's White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Obama is advised by a handful of other Harvard Law School professors such as Laurence Tribe, Charles Ogletree, Martha Minow and Dan Meltzer, who is deputy White House counsel.
Stand by for Conservatives to try and beat her up about her associations with Cass Sunstein.
ISSUE No. 7 Kagan has donated $12,050 since the 2000 election cycle, all to Democratic candidates. She donated to Hillary Rodham Clinton's 2000 Senate campaign but supported Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential primary, donating the maximum $4,600 to the politician from Illinois and nothing to Clinton.
Stand Bye, Hold On and Enjoy the Ride!
Politics is the Lovechild of Hypocrisy and Irony!