Kagan, Elena, 1960–, U.S. educator, government official, and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (2010–), b. New York City, grad. Princeton (A.B., 1981), Oxford (M.Phil., 1983), Harvard Law School (J.D., 1986). After clerking and working in a Washington, D.C., law firm, she became a law professor at the Univ. of Chicago in 1991. She was named associate counsel to President Clinton in 1995 and deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy in 1999. A law professor at Harvard from 2001, she became dean of the law school in 2003. In 2009 she became U.S. solicitor general under President Obama, who nominated her for the Supreme Court the following year. Kagan was the first appointee to the Supreme Court since 1972 not to have served as a judge.
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