Elena Kagan

Elena Kagan (born April 28, 1960) is an American jurist serving as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since her confirmation on August 6, 2010. Nominated by President Barack Obama to succeed retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, Kagan's Senate confirmation passed 63–37, marking her as the fourth woman appointed to the Court and the first with no prior judicial experience among recent justices. Prior to her Supreme Court role, she served as the 45th Solicitor General of the United States from 2009 to 2010, the first woman in that office, where she argued cases including before the Supreme Court itself.

Kagan's academic career included positions as a professor at the University of Chicago Law School from 1991 to 1995 and at Harvard Law School from 1999 to 2009, culminating in her tenure as dean of Harvard Law School from 2003 to 2009, during which she oversaw significant institutional reforms amid financial challenges. She earned an A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1981, an M.Phil. in politics from Oxford University in 1983 as a Sachs Fellow at Worcester College, and a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1986, where she supervised the Harvard Law Review. Early in her career, Kagan clerked for D.C. Circuit Judge Abner Mikva and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and she held advisory roles in the Clinton White House from 1995 to 1996.

Both parents descended from Russian Jewish immigrants, and Kagan was raised in a middle-class Jewish family on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where the family attended Lincoln Square Synagogue. She excelled as a student in her Hebrew school, participating actively in religious education and synagogue life, though her family periodically switched congregations in search of a fitting spiritual home—a pattern she later described as characteristic of "wandering Jews." The household emphasized intellectual engagement and community involvement, with her father deeply committed to local political causes and her mother shaping educational rigor at home and in the classroom. Gloria Kagan passed away in 2008, and Robert in 1994.

Elena Kagan was born on April 28, 1960, in New York City. She grew up on Manhattan's Upper West Side as the middle child in a Jewish family of three siblings, including two brothers. Her father, Robert Kagan, was an attorney who focused on housing law and represented tenants in disputes with landlords. Her mother, Gloria Gittelman Kagan, worked as a public grade school teacher known for her demanding approach to education.

The family belonged to the Lincoln Square Synagogue, where Kagan excelled as a student in Hebrew school. Her upbringing emphasized intellectual engagement and civic involvement, with her parents active in local community issues reflective of mid-20th-century urban liberal priorities. Kagan has described her Jewish background as unconventional, noting adaptations in religious practices such as a Friday-night bat mitzvah ceremony to accommodate family schedules.