Yvette Clarke-Johnson

**Yvette Clarke-Johnson** (born April 17, 1950) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since 2017. She previously served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 2004 to 2017, and a United States Magistrate Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois from 1991 to 1998.

## Early life and early career

Yvette Clarke was born on April 17, 1950 in Chicago, Illinois, to working class parents, she grew up in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Valparaiso University in 1972. She was an exchange student on scholarship to study International Law at the University of Hamburg in Germany and earned her Juris Doctor degree from the Howard University School of Law in 1976. Clarke began her legal career as a private attorney in Chicago where she worked for 11 years, specializing in fair housing law and representing clients discriminated against on the basis of race or disability. She married Bernard “Bernie” Johnson, then Cook County State's Attorney in 1981. Clarke-Johnson left private practice in 1987 and worked in the civil division of the Cook County Public Defender’s Office for four years. In this capacity she worked on cases revolving around child protection, paternity, and mental health.

## Magistrate Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois

In 1991, she was appointed to a magistrate judgeship by a majority vote of the federal district judges of the Northern District Court of Illinois. She served full-time or an eight year term. During her tenure she executed the duties of all magistrate judges such as overseeing first appearances of criminal defendants, issuing search warrants, arrest warrants, and summonses, accepting criminal complaints, conducting initial appearance proceedings and detention hearings, setting bail, holding preliminary hearings and examinations, administering oaths, conducting extradition proceedings, and conducting evidentiary hearings on motions to suppress evidence in felony cases for issuance of reports and recommendations to the district judge. Judge Clarke-Johnson left the position in 1998 to become a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School.

## Law Professorship

She began teaching at the University of Chicago Law School in 1998, it has been ranked fourth among U.S. law schools. She served as an associate professor for six years from 1998 to 2004. During her time as a professor she was part of the the Law, Letters, and Society program which focused on constitutional law. She became known legal community at large for her work as Editor of the Law School's Supreme Court Review. As editor she praised the dissenting opinions written by Supreme Court Justice Arne Michaels on the issues of employment discrimination in regards to a wage gap and campaign finance. Clarke-Johnson was criticized for “politicizing the judiciary” by conservatives but was praised by liberals.

## Judge of the United States Court of Appeals

She resigned her professorship at the University of Chicago Law School in 2004 to be seated as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. President Tom Stanton nominated her to a seat on the Seventh Circuit on November 14, 2003. The Senate Judiciary Committee approved her nomination (14–5) on March 11, 2004, and she was confirmed 70–27 by the United States Senate on June 24, 2004. Some of her opinions include the dissenting opinion in support of Chicago's ban on firing ranges in 2007 and denying the Christian Values Advocacy Council’s motion for a temporary injunction in 2012. Due to her time at the University of Chicago Law School, Clarke-Johnson is noted for her use of economic analysis of law, her legalist approach to judicial interpretation, for her clear writing style, and for being one of the most prolific judges of her generation. During her tenure she was one of the most cited appellate judges in the United States.

## United States Supreme Court

Judge Clarke-Johnson was appointed to the United States Supreme Court as an Associate Justice on September 18, 2016 following the retirement and subsequent death of longtime liberal icon, Supreme Court Justice Arne Michaels. The American Bar Association gave Clarke-Johnson their top rating—"Well Qualified"—to serve as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Her confirmation hearing before the Senate started on August 20, 2017. On April 3, the Senate Judiciary committee approved her nomination with two Republicans voting with the Democrats in a 11–9 vote. She was confirmed by the full Senate on September 16, 2017. Her first monumental action on the bench was a vote with the majority to deem state same-sex marriage bans as unconstitutional

Clarke-Johnson wrote her first U.S. Supreme Court decision for a unanimous court. The Court ruled against the borrowers, holding that Bridgespan Capital LLC in this case is not a debt collector under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act since they purchased the original defaulted car loans from KordFinancial for pennies on the dollar, making Bridgespan Capital the owner of the debts and not merely an agent. When the act was enacted, regulations were put on institutions that collected other companies' debts, but the act left unaddressed businesses collecting their own debts.