Kagan Is Reportedly Obama’s Choice for Supreme Court
President Obama will reportedly nominate Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Kagan, 50, currently the solicitor general and a former dean of Harvard Law School, is the president’s pick, NBC News reported Sunday evening.
Kagan would bring the number of Jews and women on the court to three: Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg are Jewish, and Obama filled his first vacancy, last year, with Sonia Sotomayor.
Kagan likely would not face Republican opposition in U.S. Senate confirmation hearings. A number of leading conservatives have endorsed her as a moderate.
As dean at Harvard Law, Kagan sought to redress what she perceived as an ideological imbalance by hiring conservative professors.
Jewish groups that have surveyed the likely picks – Obama reportedly was down to four – have been enthusiastic about the prospect of a Kagan candidacy.
Kagan would replace John Paul Stevens, a liberal stalwart who is retiring at 90.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO