Path to Power
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 went to Oxford, where she received a master of philosophy before attending Harvard Law School. 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.
But Kagan made Harvard Law Review and became supervising editor, clerked for Abner Mikva on the D.C. Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals and clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall at the U.S. Supreme Court.
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.
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. She had planned to return to Chicago after just a year, but she was tempted to stay in the prestigious White House job. Interestingly, a lot of Kagan’s work in the White House focused on crafting policy, not law. The New Republic called her “wonderwonk” and “a nerd who can talk tough.”
Harvard Law School
In 1999, Kagan left Washington to return to academia. She became a visiting professor at Harvard Law School, and two years later became a professor. Before he left office, Clinton nominated Kagan to serve on the D.C. Circuit of Appeals, where she had once clerked, but her nomination never received a vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee.
After two more years as a professor at Harvard, where she focused on administrative law and constitutional law, Kagan was appointed dean of the law school in 2003 by Lawrence H. Summers, former Clinton Treasury Secretary and current Obama adviser who was then president of Harvard University. "I thought she had a combination of commitment to students, leadership ability, and deep insight into law, not just for its own sake but as a tool for making the world work better," Summers said.
After Obama won the 2008 presidential election, he tapped Kagan to be his solicitor general. In January, Kagan received the endorsement of the last eight solicitors general in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. “We are confident that Dean Kagan will bring distinction to the office, continue its highest traditions and be a forceful advocate for the United States before the Supreme Court,” the letter said. She is the first female solicitor general.
Despite her limited experience in front of the Supreme Court, her name is often mentioned as a potential nominee to replace Justice David Souter. If nominated and confirmed, she would be the third woman to sit on the high court.
