Elena Kagan is an American lawyer who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. She was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 10,2010,and has served since August 7,2010. Kagan is the fourth woman to become a member of the Court.
The demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States encompass the gender,ethnicity,and religious,geographic,and economic backgrounds of the 116 people who have been appointed and confirmed as justices to the Supreme Court. Some of these characteristics have been raised as an issue since the court was established in 1789. For its first 180 years,justices were almost always white male Protestants of Anglo or Northwestern European descent.
Ketanji Onyika Brown Jackson is an American lawyer and jurist who is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Jackson was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Joe Biden on February 25,2022,and confirmed by the U.S. Senate and sworn into office that same year. She is the first black woman and the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court. From 2021 to 2022,Jackson was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
The nomination and confirmation of justices to the Supreme Court of the United States involves several steps,the framework for which is set forth in the United States Constitution. Specifically,Article II,Section 2,Clause 2,provides that the president of the United States nominates a justice and that the United States Senate provides advice and consent before the person is formally appointed to the Court. It also empowers a president to temporarily,under certain circumstances,fill a Supreme Court vacancy by means of a recess appointment. The Constitution does not set any qualifications for service as a justice,thus the president may nominate any individual to serve on the Court.
Julianna Michelle Childs is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was previously a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina from 2010 to 2022 and a judge of the South Carolina Circuit Court from 2006 to 2010.
On May 10,2010,President Barack Obama announced his selection of Elena Kagan for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States,to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens. Kagan's nomination was confirmed by a 63–37 vote of the United States Senate on August 5,2010. When nominated,Kagan was Solicitor General of the United States,a position to which Obama had appointed her in March 2009. Kagan was the first Supreme Court nominee since Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981 to not be a sitting circuit court judge and the most recent such nominee as of 2023. She was the first Supreme Court nominee since William Rehnquist and Lewis F. Powell Jr. in 1971 to not be a sitting judge on any court.
Luis Felipe Restrepo,known commonly as L. Felipe Restrepo,is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and former United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the United States Sentencing Commission.
Jane Louise Kelly is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
Regina McCarthy is an American air quality expert who served as the first White House national climate advisor from 2021 to 2022. She previously served as the thirteenth Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2013 to 2017.
Leondra Reid Kruger is an American judge who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of California. A native of South Pasadena,California,she graduated from Harvard College and Yale Law School. Kruger then clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens,and subsequently worked in private practice and as a professor. She served as acting Principal Deputy Solicitor General of the United States from 2010 to 2011,and worked in the Office of Legal Counsel. In 2014,California Governor Jerry Brown nominated Kruger to a seat on the Supreme Court of California. She was confirmed,and was sworn in on January 5,2015.
On March 16,2016,President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland for Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to succeed Antonin Scalia,who had died one month earlier. At the time of his nomination,Garland was the chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Florence Yu Pan is an American lawyer who serves as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. She was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia from 2021 to 2022 and a judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia from 2009 to 2021.
Lisa DeNell Cook is an American economist who has served as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors since May 23,2022. She is the first African American woman and first woman of color to sit on the Board. Before her appointment to the Federal Reserve,she was elected to the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
ImeIme Umana is an American lawyer who served as a law clerk for Robert L. Wilkins and Sonia Sotomayor. She was the 131st president—and the first black female president—of the Harvard Law Review.
Elizabeth Barchas Prelogar is an American lawyer who has served as solicitor general of the United States since October 2021. She served as acting solicitor general from January 20,2021,at the start of the Biden administration,until President Joe Biden sent her nomination to the U.S. Senate on August 11,2021,when she was prevented from serving while the nomination was before the Senate as a result of the terms of the Federal Vacancies Reform Act of 1998.
With the advice and consent of the United States Senate,the president of the United States appoints the members of the Supreme Court of the United States,which is the highest court of the federal judiciary of the United States. Following his victory in the 2020 presidential election,Democrat Joe Biden took office as president on January 20,2021. During the 2020 Democratic primary campaign,Biden pledged to appoint a Black woman to the Supreme Court,although unlike his opponent,Donald Trump,Biden did not release a specific list of potential nominees during the 2020 general election campaign.
Candace Rae Jackson-Akiwumi is an American attorney who has served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since July 2021. She was previously a staff attorney at the federal defender program in the Northern District of Illinois from 2010 to 2020 and a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder in Washington,D.C.,from 2020 to 2021.
President Joe Biden began his presidency with fewer vacancies to fill than his predecessor. He pledged to nominate people with diverse backgrounds and professional experience;further he pledged to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court of the United States.
On February 25,2022,President Joe Biden announced that he would nominate Ketanji Brown Jackson to the position of associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States to fill the vacancy by Stephen Breyer,who announced his retirement on January 27,2022,at the age of 83. Jackson,a former law clerk of Breyer,was a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit,having been appointed by Biden in 2021. Jackson is the first Black woman in U.S. history to be nominated to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Roger Anthony Fairfax Jr. is an American legal scholar.
