Information on Elena Kagan

Reference Librarian Kincaid Brown of the University of Michigan Law Library has created an informational web page for US Supreme Court nominee Solicitor General Elena Kagan. In addition to biographical information about Elena Kagan, the site links to her authored works, transcripts of speeches and links to the 2009 confirmation hearings for Ms. Kagan's nomination as Solicitor General. Kincaid will update the site as new information becomes available. When the confirmation hearings begin, the site will also include links to the hearing transcripts.

The Brooklyn Law School Library has in its collection a video recording related to one of the items on the list: Elena Kagan, Regulation of Hate Speech and Pornography after R.A.V., 60 U. CHI. L. REV. 873 (1993) (HeinOnline). Speech, Equality & Harm, Call #KF4770.Z9 S64 1993 is a seven part video available in the library's AV collection. Tape number 3 features the Pornography, Hate Speech and the First Amendment Panel and runs 229 minutes with 12 minutes of Elena Kagan's comments on freedom of expression at about the 217 minute mark. The 1993 video of the then 33 year-old Kagan dates from when she was on the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School as an assistant professor 17 years ago.

Interestingly, Kagan grew up Manhattan's Stuyvesant Town, graduated Hunter College High School on the Upper East Side and later lived on West End Avenue. If confirmed, she would boost NYC's representation on the Supreme Court to four members; Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, Justice Sonia Sotomayor spent part of her childhood in public housing in the Bronx and Justice Antonin Scalia grew up in Queens. BLS Professor Jason Mazzone commented: "I don't think that there's anything in the water or in the air that's causing this, but it's really notable. You would never find at any prior point in history four justices from the same city."

Source: the Academic Law Libraries Special Interest Section of the American Association of Law Libraries