U.S. Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia and Elena Kagan to Visit UM

Session is free and open to the public, but tickets are required

OXFORD, Miss. – The University of Mississippi School of Law will host two U.S. Supreme Court justices in December for a session open to the general public.

The meeting, titled “A Conversation with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Elena Kagan,” will take place at 10 a.m. Dec. 15 at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts.

The session will be moderated by Jack Nowlin, associate dean for faculty development and professor of law at the UM School of Law. Nowlin is a constitutional law expert.

“It would be a great day for the law school and university community if we had just one U.S. Supreme Court justice coming,” said Richard Gershon, UM law dean. “It is truly special to have both Justice Kagan and Justice Scalia at Ole Miss. It is an honor for us to have these outstanding jurists here.”

Everyone must have a ticket to attend. There will be no entry after 10 a.m. Parking will be available at the Ford Center.

The event is being made possible by the James McClure Memorial Lectures Endowment. The endowment was established in 1979 by the Hon. James McClure and Mrs. Tupper McClure Lampton to honor their father, James McClure.

Supreme Court Justice, Elena Kagan. Photo by, The Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Photo by the Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States

Elena Kagan, Associate Justice, was born in New York, New York, on April 28, 1960. She received an A.B. from Princeton in 1981, an M. Phil. from Oxford in 1983, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1986. She clerked for Judge Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit from 1986-1987 and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1987 Term. After briefly practicing law at a Washington, D.C. law firm, she became a law professor, first at the University of Chicago Law School and later at Harvard Law School. She also served for four years in the Clinton administration, as associate counsel to the president and then as deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy. Between 2003 and 2009, she served as the dean of Harvard Law School. In 2009, President Obama nominated her as the Solicitor General of the United States. After serving in that role for a year, the president nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 10, 2010. She took her seat on August 7, 2010.

Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, March 11, 1936. He married Maureen McCarthy and has nine children: Ann Forrest, Eugene, John Francis, Catherine Elisabeth, Mary Clare, Paul David, Matthew, Christopher James and Margaret Jane. He received his A.B. from Georgetown University and the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School, and was a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University from 1960–1961. He was in private practice in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1961 to 1967, a professor of law at the University of Virginia from 1967 to 1971, and a professor of law at the University of Chicago from 1977 to 1982 and a visiting professor of law at Georgetown University and Stanford University. He was chairman of the American Bar Association’s Section of Administrative Law, 1981-1982, and its Conference of Section Chairmen, 1982-1983. He served the federal government as general counsel of the Office of Telecommunications Policy from 1971 to 1972, chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States from 1972 to 1974, and assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel from 1974 to 1977. He was appointed Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat September 26, 1986.

For more information about the event, please visit http://law.olemiss.edu/event/u-s-supreme-court-justices-antonin-scalia-and-elena-kagan/

For more information about Justice Scalia or Justice Kagan, please visit http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/biographies.aspx

For additional inquiries, contact Jenny Kate Luster at 662-915-3424 or jkluster@olemiss.edu.