Biographies of Current Justices of the Supreme Court Biographies of Current Justices of the Supreme Court John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, was born in Buffalo, New York, January 27, 1955. He married Jane Marie Sullivan in 1996 and they have two children - Josephine and Jack. He received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1976 and a J.D. from Harvard Law School in 1979. He served as a law clerk for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1979–1980 and as a law clerk for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1980 Term. He was Special Assistant to the Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice from 1981–1982, Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan, White House Counsel’s Office from 1982–1986, and Principal Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice from 1989–1993.

From 1986–1989 and 1993–2003, he practiced law in Washington, D.C. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 2003. President George W. Bush nominated him as Chief Justice of the United States, and he took his seat September 29, 2005. Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice, was born in Sacramento, California, July 23, 1936. He married Mary Davis and has three children. He received his B.A. from Stanford University and the London School of Economics, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He was in private practice in San Francisco, California from 1961–1963, as well as in Sacramento, California from 1963–1975. From 1965 to 1988, he was a Professor of Constitutional Law at the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific.

He has served in numerous positions during his career, including a member of the California Army National Guard in 1961, the board of the Federal Judicial Center from 1987–1988, and two committees of the Judicial Conference of the United States: the Advisory Panel on Financial Disclosure Reports and Judicial Activities, subsequently renamed the Advisory Committee on Codes of Conduct, from 1979–1987, and the Committee on Pacific Territories from 1979–1990, which he chaired from 1982–1990. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1975. President Reagan nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat February 18, 1988. Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, was born in the Pinpoint community near Savannah, Georgia on June 23, 1948. He attended Conception Seminary from 1967-1968 and received an A.B., cum laude, from Holy Cross College in 1971 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974.

He was admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an Assistant Attorney General of Missouri, 1974-1977; an attorney with the Monsanto Company, 1977-1979; and Legislative Assistant to Senator John Danforth, 1979-1981. From 1981-1982 he served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, and as Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 1982-1990. From 1990-1991, he served as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and he took his seat October 23, 1991. He married Virginia Lamp on May 30, 1987 and has one child, Jamal Adeen by a previous marriage. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice, was born in Brooklyn, New York, March 15, 1933. She married Martin D.

Ginsburg in 1954, and has a daughter, Jane, and a son, James. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, from 1959–1961. From 1961–1963, she was a research associate and then associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. She was a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963–1972, and Columbia Law School from 1972–1980, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Stanford, California from 1977–1978. In 1971, she was instrumental in launching the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served as the ACLU’s General Counsel from 1973–1980, and on the National Board of Directors from 1974–1980.

She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. President Clinton nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat August 10, 1993. Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice, was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S.

Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979–1980. He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967–1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977–1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990–1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994. Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, April 1, 1950.

He married Martha-Ann Bomgardner in 1985, and has two children - Philip and Laura. He served as a law clerk for Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1976–1977. He was Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, 1977–1981, Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1981–1985, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1985–1987, and U.S. Attorney, District of New Jersey, 1987–1990. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1990. President George W. Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat January 31, 2006. Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice, was born in Bronx, New York, on June 25, 1954. She earned a B.A.

in 1976 from Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude and receiving the university's highest academic honor. In 1979, she earned a J.D. from Yale Law School where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She served as Assistant District Attorney in the New York County District Attorney's Office from 1979–1984. She then litigated international commercial matters in New York City at Pavia & Harcourt, where she served as an associate and then partner from 1984–1992. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. She served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1998–2009. President Barack Obama nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 26, 2009, and she assumed this role August 8, 2009.

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.

A year later, the President nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on May 10, 2010. She took her seat on August 7, 2010. Sandra Day O’Connor (Retired), Associate Justice, was born in El Paso, Texas, March 26, 1930. She married John Jay O’Connor III in 1952 and has three sons - Scott, Brian, and Jay. She received her B.A. and LL.B. from Stanford University. She served as Deputy County Attorney of San Mateo County, California from 1952–1953 and as a civilian attorney for Quartermaster Market Center, Frankfurt, Germany from 1954–1957. From 1958–1960, she practiced law in Maryvale, Arizona, and served as Assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965–1969. She was appointed to the Arizona State Senate in1969 and was subsequently reelected to two two-year terms.

In 1975 she was elected Judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court and served until 1979, when she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. President Reagan nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat September 25, 1981. Justice O’Connor retired from the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006. David H. Souter (Retired), Associate Justice, was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, September 17, 1939. He graduated from Harvard College, from which he received his A.B. After two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, he received an A.B. in Jurisprudence from Oxford University and an M.A. in 1989. After receiving an LL.B. from Harvard Law School, he was an associate at Orr and Reno in Concord, New Hampshire from 1966 to 1968, when he became an Assistant Attorney General of New Hampshire. In 1971, he became Deputy Attorney General and in 1976, Attorney General of New Hampshire.

In 1978, he was named an Associate Justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire, and was appointed to the Supreme Court of New Hampshire as an Associate Justice in 1983. He became a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit on May 25, 1990. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat October 9, 1990. Justice Souter retired from the Supreme Court on June 29, 2009. John Paul Stevens (Retired), Associate Justice, was born in Chicago, Illinois, April 20, 1920. He married Maryan Mulholland (deceased), and has four children - John Joseph, Kathryn, Elizabeth Jane, and Susan Roberta. He received an A.B. from the University of Chicago, and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law. He served in the United States Navy from 1942–1945, and was a law clerk to Justice Wiley Rutledge of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1947 Term.

He was admitted to law practice in Illinois in 1949. He was Associate Counsel to the Subcommittee on the Study of Monopoly Power of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1951–1952, and a member of the Attorney General’s National Committee to Study Antitrust Law, 1953–1955. He was Second Vice President of the Chicago Bar Association in 1970. From 1970–1975, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. President Ford nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat December 19, 1975. Justice Stevens retired from the Supreme Court on June 29, 2010. January 05, 2017 | Version 2014.2 CNN.com - Bush nominates Roberts�to Supreme Court - Jul 20, 2005 Manage Alerts | What Is This? WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush on Tuesday chose as his first Supreme Court nominee U.S.

Circuit Judge John Roberts Jr., a conservative whose selection pleased Republicans and prompted Democrats to vow a thorough review in the Senate. If confirmed by the Senate, Roberts would replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who gained a reputation as a moderate swing voter in her 24 terms on the nation's highest court. Bush called the selection of a nominee to the high court "one of the most consequential decisions a president makes." Bush's announcement, televised nationally in prime time Tuesday from the White House, ended nearly three weeks of fervent speculation about who would take O'Connor's pivotal place on the court. A senior administration official told CNN that Bush interviewed Roberts Friday at the White House and made his final decision Tuesday morning. He called Roberts about 12:30 p.m. to offer him the appointment. With Roberts standing at his side, Bush said the nominee "has devoted his entire professional life to the cause of justice and is widely admired for his intellect, his sound judgment and personal decency." ( Transcript ) In a brief statement, Roberts said, "It is both an honor and very humbling to be nominated to serve on the Supreme Court." Roberts, 50, who serves on the U.S.

Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, considered the most influential federal panel outside of the Supreme Court, took the bench in 2003 after his confirmation was held up two years by Senate Democrats. He was nominated to the same court in 1992 by the president's father, President George H.W. Bush, but his nomination did not come up for a vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate before the White House changed hands in January 1993. A veteran appellate attorney, Roberts has argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court, both in private practice and as deputy solicitor general during the elder Bush's administration. "That experience left me with a profound appreciation for the role of the court in our constitutional democracy," Roberts said. A 1979 graduate of Harvard Law School, he clerked in 1980 and 1981 for Justice William Rehnquist before the latter was elevated to chief justice. He also served in the Reagan administration, first as special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith and then as an associate White House counsel.

During the dispute over the 2000 presidential election, Roberts was part of a team of Republican lawyers and former Supreme Court law clerks who assisted the Bush-Cheney campaign. Ready for a fight The first Supreme Court nomination in nearly 11 years mobilized advocacy groups of all stripes, and early reaction indicated a possible partisan fight. ( Full story ) The conservative group Progress for America rallied in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington Tuesday night, carrying signs reading "Confirm." A liberal advocacy group, People for the American Way, was already trying to rally its forces, sending out 400,000 e-mails to supporters after the announcement, according to the group's president, Ralph Neas. Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Senate minority leader, said he would not "pre-judge this nomination." "The Senate must review Judge Roberts' record to determine if he has a demonstrated commitment to the core American values of freedom, equality and fairness," he said. Sen.

John Cornyn, a Republican member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called Roberts "an exceptional judge, brilliant legal mind and a man of outstanding character." A prominent liberal advocacy group -- NARAL Pro-Choice America -- opposed Roberts' second nomination to the appeals court, saying he has worked to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that struck down state laws outlawing abortion. ( Full story ) Arguing a case for the first Bush administration in 1990 when he was deputy solicitor general, Roberts said Roe v. Wade "was wrongly decided and should be overruled." In his 2003 confirmation hearing, however, he told senators he was acting as an advocate for his client, rather than presenting his own positions. He told senators Roe was "the settled law of the land" and said "there's nothing in my personal views that would prevent me from fully and faithfully applying that precedent." Roberts, a native of Buffalo, New York, who now lives in Maryland, is married and has two children. He is a Roman Catholic. The nominee and his wife, Jane, came to the White House Tuesday evening to have dinner with the Bushes before the announcement, the senior administration official said.

Leahy vows fair hearing O'Connor, 75, announced her retirement July 1 and will formally step down when her successor is sworn in. Nominated by President Reagan, she was the first woman appointed to the court and took her seat on September 25, 1981. The vacancy is the first since 1994, when President Clinton nominated Stephen Breyer. President Bush said he and his staff consulted with 70 senators on the nomination process. "I received good advice from both Republicans and Democrats," he said. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney met July 12 with four senators with key roles in the confirmation process: Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tennessee; Reid; Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee; and the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont. "These senators share my goal of a dignified confirmation process that is conducted with fairness and civility," Bush said. "It is important that the newest justice be on the bench when the Supreme Court reconvenes in October." Giving the Democratic response to Bush's pick, Leahy called for "the cooperation of the nominee and the administration" in the confirmation process.

He promised to give Roberts a fair hearing -- but also said he would not get a "rubber stamp." "We need to consider this nomination as thoroughly and carefully as the American people deserve," Leahy said. "No one is entitled to a free pass to a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court." Roberts is expected to meet with members of the Judiciary Committee next week before Congress takes a month off. Confirmation hearings likely will begin after Labor Day. Rehnquist, who has been battling thyroid cancer, announced Thursday he has no plans to step down. ( Full story ) Speculation about O'Connor's replacement focused much of Tuesday on another woman: U.S. Circuit Court Judge Edith Clement. ( Other candidates ) CNN's John King, Suzanne Malveaux, Steve Turnham and Ted Barrett contributed to this report. Story Tools Bush Legacy: The Supreme Court - ABC News ABC News Bush Legacy: The Supreme Court By JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG Email Combine the Iraq morass, a string of legislative defeats, an economy in freefall and a national election that delivered both congressional and executive power to the Democrats, and the eight years of George W. Bush looks to many like a total, dismal failure.

Yet Bush leaves office later this month with one enduring, undeniable legacy: He made a lasting impact on the Supreme Court. History may judge him harshly on many levels, but no historian will be able to write that George W. Bush was unable to deliver on his campaign promises when it came to the court. In ways that will be felt for decades, his nominations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito will have a pronounced impact on the law and society. Change already is evident. For conservatives, the change was long in coming. For them, the previous court, led by the late William Rehnquist, had been an ideological disappointment. Although seven of the court's nine justices were appointed by Republican presidents, the court typically reached a less-than-conservative result on sweeping social issues like abortion, affirmative action and individual rights. More often than not in those controversial cases, the vote was 5-4, with Reagan appointee Sandra Day O'Connor casting the decisive vote with the court's liberal-leaning judges. In case after case, conservatives were stymied, falling short of their goals to remake the court and dismantle liberal precedents from past eras. Change was on the horizon in the days before the 2004 election.

Rehnquist announced he had thyroid cancer, making it all but certain Bush would get an appointment in his second term in office. Even though he would be replacing a conservative with another conservative, Bush would have an opportunity to fill the court's center seat, that of chief justice. Anticipating Rehnquist's retirement, Bush's top advisers, including the vice president, began secretly interviewing possible nominees in the spring of 2005 so they would be ready with a list of prospects at that historic moment when Rehnquist stepped down. But then there was a surprise: Sandra Day O'Connor, the swing vote for liberals, delivered a bombshell by announcing she would retire first, before Rehnquist. Bush would get his moment with not one, but two vacancies. And because he would be replacing moderate O'Connor with a conservative, he would have his chance to significantly change the court's makeup and tenor, where past Republican presidents -- including his own father -- had failed. But he and his advisers knew he had to get it right. Bush was seared by his father's nomination of David Souter to the Supreme Court.

The elder Bush had a rare opportunity with his nominees: He replaced two liberal giants, William Brennan with Souter and, the following year, Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas. Conservatives were thrilled; liberals were horrified. A Supreme Court nomination can be a president's most lasting legacy. A president can undo any number of previous executive efforts and take different approaches, but he can't change the court unless a justice retires. And he can't change the court unless a justice retires who has opposing ideological views. George H.W. Bush got two historic chances, and, from the conservatives' perspective, he blew it with Souter. Souter, an unknown New Hampshire jurist who was portrayed as a conservative quickly became one of the court's most liberal justices. Conservative legal scholars have tagged Souter's selection as one of the biggest blunders of a Republican president in the 20th century. Bush would not make the same mistake his father had. He had vowed to nominate justices like Thomas and Scalia, and his advisers methodically looked for nominees who would fit that bill. They were looking for solid judicial conservatives with proven track records.

They didn't want an unknown like Souter who would prove to be liberal; and they didn't want another Anthony Kennedy, a moderate conservative they believed had drifted to the left in his years on the Court. The advisers had come to believe that a nominee's service in the executive branch, which typically brought with it critical media coverage, would stiffen a justice's resolve once those critical editorials from top media outlets like the New York Times started rolling in. They cast a wide net, and they narrowed it down to a handful of top prospects. John Roberts, a highly regarded Supreme Court advocate who had served in two Republican administrations, was one. In his short tenure on the D.C.-based federal appeals court, he had impressed conservative and liberal colleagues alike. Sam Alito, a widely respected Newark, N.J.-based federal appeals court judge with 15 years of experience on the bench, was another. O'Connor's retirement changed the equation, prompting administration lawyers to double back and renew the search for women and minority candidates. But Bush eventually went back to his original list. He thought Roberts's qualifications "jumped off the page," and he quickly settled on him after personally interviewing him in the White House.

Six weeks later, Rehnquist died of thyroid cancer on the weekend before Roberts's hearings were to begin. His death came at a low point of Bush's presidency. Just five days before, Hurricane Katrina had ravaged the Gulf Coast and destroyed New Orleans, killing nearly 2,000 people and displacing thousands more. As the floodwaters rose and state and local officials floundered, neither Bush nor his administration appeared to grasp the scope of the disaster or the degree of human anguish and misery. That weekend of Rehnquist's death, Bush was in full damage-control mode. He did not hesitate on his decision for the court's new leader. He called Roberts at home less than 12 hours after the news of Rehnquist's death became public. On Monday morning, he introduced him to the nation as his nominee for chief justice. Now Bush had to find another nominee to replace O'Connor. He emphatically told advisers he would appoint a woman or minority. But there was no ideal candidate. Some were too old, some too liberal, some too unpredictable, and others had too many potential conflicts or problems. And as the names fell off the short list, Harriet Miers edged her way onto it.

The Miers story is almost a perfect storm of missteps and disconnect at every level within the White House. Bush's decision to nominate her was driven by his determination not to repeat his father's mistake with Souter. His dad didn't know Souter; his advisers promised Souter was conservative, and they had no idea what they were talking about. Bush knew Harriet Miers, and he knew she would not change or disappoint. Ironically, the opposition of conservative groups to Miers also was driven by the Souter nomination. To conservatives, Miers was an unproven and untested nominee, just like Souter. How could anyone know she wouldn't drift to the left once Bush left town? And how could she hold up to the liberal intellectual heavyweights on the court like Stephen Breyer? Alito was waiting in the wings as Miers' nomination fell apart, and with a Republican majority in the Senate, Bush did not have to compromise. With the nominations of Roberts and Alito, Bush fulfilled his early vow to appoint justices like Thomas and Scalia. His appointees are different, just as Thomas and Scalia are different. So far, for example, both have indicated they are more deferential to precedent and more cautious in their approaches.

And while the Court is now firmly conservative, it is not forcefully so. It now has four solid judicial conservatives and four solid liberals. Kennedy has become the new swing vote. He is much more conservative than O'Connor was, especially on issues pertaining to abortion and race, but he will sometimes cross sides on other issues. Any conservative victories -- whether a decision striking down gun bans as violating the 2nd amendment or one upholding limits on specific abortion procedures -- came because Kennedy fell in line. In the first full term of the new Roberts court in 2006, Kennedy was nearly always in lockstep with the right, and the court appeared headed on a clear conservative path. But the following year, the court had a constellation of cases that saw Kennedy cast some key votes with liberals, leading to liberal victories on presidential power and the environment. That's not to understate Bush's appointments. It is unlikely Roberts or Alito will drift to the left, and with both men in their 50s, Bush and his team of lawyers will be shaping the direction of American law and culture for a generation. But the lasting snapshot of the Roberts court has yet to be taken.

Barack Obama likely will get at least one appointment -- John Paul Stevens, a reliable liberal, is 88. Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter also are rumored to be looking for an exit. Those three, however, are all liberal and, presumably, they would be replaced with like-minded jurists. Obama would not change the court's direction from the one Bush set unless one of the conservatives now on the bench left for ill health or other unimaginable reasons. The recent history of the court, however, is marked with surprises. No one expected O'Connor to step down, which gave Bush a chance to change the Court in more significant ways than any other president in half a century. If Obama wins a second term and a conservative bows out, he could turn the court back to where it was -- or more liberal than it was -- before Bush began. Jan Crawford Greenburg is ABC's legal correspondent and author of "Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court." 0 Shares U.S. Supreme Court Justices The U.S. Supreme Court Justices Database and OnTheIssues. Show details Hide details Loading guide navigation...

Supreme Court Justices Guide The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the U.S. and has appellate jurisdiction over all federal and state court cases involving federal law. The current court consists of eight associate justices and one chief justice, each of whom are nominated by the president and confirmed in a majority vote by the U.S. Senate. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, or are removed after impeachment. Timing of vacancies can be unpredictable because of this indefinite tenure, and can arise in quick succession (such as the nomination of Lewis Franklin Powell Jr and William Rehnquist on the same day) or after a significant length of time has passed (such as between the nomination of Stephen Breyer in 1994 and John Roberts in 2005). All but four presidents have appointed at least one justice to the Court and three presidents - Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt - have appointed justices who collectively have served more than 100 years. The Court currently has six male and three female justices. One justice is African-American, one is Latino, and two are Italian-Americans; six justices are Roman Catholics, and three are Jewish.

The average age is 67 years, 7 months, and every current justice has an Ivy League background. Our Supreme Court Justices comparison also incorporates academic data that reflects the ideological leanings of justices since the 1937 term. Through analysis of judicial rulings, as well as other details like upbringing, political party affiliation, speeches given, and editorials written about them, researchers Andrew D. Martin and Kevin M. Quinn have assigned values to a justice that represents their ideological preference on a simple conservative–liberal scale. You can reference the chart below to see at a glance where justices fall on the ideological scale over their tenure, and filter by ideology on the homepage to narrow your selection to liberal, moderate, or conservative justices. Each unique color represents a particular Supreme Court seat, which makes the transitions from retiring justices to newly appointed justices easier to follow. The black lines represent the leanings of the Chief Justices. The yellow line represents the estimated location of the median justice – who, as Duncan Black’s median voter theorem posits, is often the swing vote in closely divided decisions. Active Service The number of years a justice has served on the Supreme Court.

Distribution of Active Service Overall Ideology A representation of a justice's beliefs on an ideological spectrum, with 100 being most liberal and 0 being most conservative. Figures are derived through content analyses of newspaper editorials written between the justice's nomination and confirmation dates. Data from Segal and Cover. Distribution of Overall Ideology Distribution of Age at Nomination Presidential Appointments Case Participations The total number of cases heard by the justice during their tenure. A minimum of six judges must be present to make a decision on a case. Distribution of Case Participations Opinions of the Court The number of opinions written by the justice, including co-authored opinions. Justices are selected to write opinions by the most senior justice on their side. Distribution of Opinions of the Court Dissenting Opinions The total number of dissenting opinions written by a justice over their tenure. Justices are selected to write opinions by the most senior justice on their side. Distribution of Dissenting Opinions Judicial Nominations - Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. Judicial Nominations Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. Chief Justice of the United States On September 29, 2005, John G. Roberts, Jr.

was confirmed as Chief Justice of the United States . BIOGRAPHY John G. Roberts, Jr., was born in Buffalo, New York, on January 27, 1955. He grew up in Indiana, where he captained his high school football team and worked summers in a steel mill to help pay his way through college. In 1976, he received his bachelor's degree from Harvard, summa cum laude , after only three years. He then attended Harvard Law School, where he was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review and graduated magna cum laude in 1979. The year after he graduated from law school, Roberts clerked for Justice Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Friendly is acclaimed as the preeminent appellate judge of his generation. Chief Justice Warren Burger said of Justice Friendly that he could not identify any judicial colleague more highly qualified to have come to the Supreme Court of the United States than Henry Friendly. (Jeffrey B.

Morris, Federal Justice in the Second Circuit 178 (1987).) From 1980 to 1981, Chief Justice Roberts clerked for then-Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist on the United States Supreme Court. Chief Justice Roberts then served as Special Assistant to Attorney General William French Smith from 1981 to 1982. In that role, he advised the Attorney General, wrote speeches, and acted as the Attorney General's representative to other officials in the Executive Branch and state and local governments. From 1982 until 1986, Chief Justice Roberts served in the White House as Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan. His duties in the White House included reviewing bills submitted to the President by the Congress, drafting and reviewing Executive Orders, and generally reviewing the full range of presidential activities for legal problems. In 1986, Chief Justice Roberts left the White House to enter private practice as an associate at the law firm of Hogan & Hartson. He was elected a partner a year later. His practice focused on appellate litigation and was by all accounts extremely successful.

In 1989, Chief Justice Roberts argued his first case before the United States Supreme Court as court-appointed counsel in United States v. Halper , 490 U.S. 435 (1989), a double-jeopardy case. He prevailed on behalf of his client. From 1989 until 1993, Chief Justice Roberts served as Principal Deputy Solicitor General, the second-in-command in the Office of the Solicitor General. As Principal Deputy Solicitor General, Chief Justice Roberts briefed and argued a variety of cases before the United States Supreme Court on behalf of the U.S. government. In 1992, when Chief Justice Roberts was 37, President George H.W. Bush nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The nomination languished without action by the Senate. In January 1993, Justice Roberts returned to Hogan & Hartson and resumed his appellate practice. Including his tenure as a government lawyer, Chief Justice Roberts argued 39 cases before the United States Supreme Court, placing him among the country's most experienced Supreme Court litigators.

Chief Justice Roberts' Supreme Court arguments alone span a vast set of issues within the Supreme Court's jurisdiction, including admiralty, antitrust, arbitration, environmental law, free speech/religion, health care law, Indian law, bankruptcy, tax, regulation of financial institutions, administrative law, labor law, federal jurisdiction and procedure, interstate commerce, civil rights, and criminal law. In addition to representing business interests, Chief Justice Roberts at different times represented the States of Hawaii, Alaska, and Nevada in defending diverse state social, health-and-welfare, and environmental policies before the United States Supreme Court. He was retained by the various state attorneys general pursuing antitrust claims against Microsoft to defend the district court's remedial orders before the D.C. Circuit. From time to time he also represented criminal defendants and indigents on a pro bono basis. Chief Justice Roberts, a member of the D.C. Bar, is also admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court.

As an attorney, he was widely involved in bar activities: For example, he was a member of the United States Judicial Conference Advisory Committee on Appellate Rules, the American Law Institute, the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers, and the Legal Advisory Board of the National Legal Center for the Public Interest. He worked on the bipartisan Joint Project on the Independent Counsel Statute sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution. In May 2001, President George W. Bush nominated Roberts for a seat on the D.C. Circuit. His nomination was favorably reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 16-3. The Senate confirmed his nomination by unanimous consent on May 8, 2003. On September 29, 2005, then-Judge Roberts was confirmed by the U.S. Senate and, after remarks by President George W. Bush, was sworn-in as the 17th Chief Justice of the United States by Associate Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, in the East Room of the White House. Chief Justice Roberts lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with his wife, Jane, and their two children, Josie and Jack.

Jane Sullivan Roberts is a partner at Shaw Pittman in Washington, D.C. She has a background in technology law and currently heads the firm's professional development program. She has practiced in the private sector as a litigator and transactional lawyer throughout her legal career, including a year in Australia. Chief Justice Meet the 8 Sitting Supreme Court Justices - ABC News ABC News Meet the 8 Sitting Supreme Court Justices By GENEVA SANDS Mar 3, 2016, 10:52 PM ET 0 Shares WATCH In the Wake of Scalia's Death, What Happens Next in the Supreme Court 0 Shares Email President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court today, choosing a judicial moderate despite strong opposition from Senate Republicans who have vowed to block the pick until after the next president is elected. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia 's unexpected death on Feb. 13 has left eight justices remaining on the bench. With Republicans saying they won't hold hearings or a vote on Obama's nominee until after the November elections, there is an increasing chance that Garland won't join the court until next year. "This vacancy will not be filled this year.

We will look forward to the American people deciding who they want to make this appointment through their own votes,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) said. The eight current justices attended Scalia's memorial service, where Justices Clarence Thomas and Ruth Bader Ginsburg paid tribute their late colleague and friend. Read more about the current justices' history and their pathway to the nation's highest court: Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr. Drew Angerer/Bloomberg/Getty Images Supreme Court Justice John Roberts. Roberts , 61, was appointed to the court in 2005 by President George W. Bush, who nominated him as Chief Justice of the United States. He took his seat Sept. 29, 2005, after a 78-22 vote in the Senate approving his nomination to become the 17th chief justice. Roberts graduated from Harvard College in 1976 and received his law degree from Harvard three years later. He served on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals before being appointed to the Supreme Court . Roberts was born in Buffalo, New York, and has two children with his wife, Jane Marie Sullivan. Anthony M.

Kennedy Mark Wilson/Getty Images Supreme Court Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. Kennedy, 79, was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. He was confirmed in a 97-0 vote , and joined the bench Feb. 18, 1988 after the failed nomination of Robert Bork . Kennedy received degrees from Stanford University, the London School of Economics and Harvard Law School. After serving in private practice, Kennedy was a Professor of Constitutional Law at the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. He was a member of the California Army National Guard in 1961. Kennedy was on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals when he was nominated. He is married to Mary Davis and has three children. Kennedy was born in Sacramento, California. Clarence Thomas MCT/Getty Images Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Thomas , 67, was nominated by President Bush in 1991. He was confirmed by the Senate in a 52-48 vote after partisan and contentious hearings , in which Anita Hill , a former aide to Thomas, testified to allegations of sexual harassment. Thomas denied the allegations in the highly publicized confirmation hearings and maintains his innocence.

He joined the court on Oct. 23, 1991. Thomas graduated from Holy Cross College in 1971 and received his law degree from Yale Law School. He served as a Judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals from 1990-1991. Prior to his judgeship, he was the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education and Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Thomas was born in the Pinpoint community near Savannah, Georgia. He married Virginia Lamp on May 30, 1987 and has one child by a previous marriage. Ruth Bader Ginsburg Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post/Getty Images Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ginsburg , 82, was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the Supreme Court in 1993 while serving as a judge on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. She was confirmed in a 96-3 vote and joined the court on Aug. 10, 1993.

She was a professor at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963–1972 and then at Columbia Law School from 1972–1980. Prior to her judgeship, Ginsburg worked as the ACLU ’s General Counsel, where she launched the Women’s Rights Project. She received her undergraduate degree from Cornell University. She then attended Harvard Law School, but received her degree from Columbia Law School. Ginsburg was born in Brooklyn, New York. She married Martin D. Ginsburg in 1954, and has a daughter, Jane, and a son, James. Stephen G. Breyer Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Breyer , 77, was nominated to the by President Bill Clinton in 1994. The Senate confirmed him in a 87-9 vote and he took the bench on Aug. 3, 1994. Breyer served on the First Circuit Court of Appeals for 14 years before joining the Supreme Court and as chief judge for four years. He attended Stanford University and Magdalen College, Oxford, and received his law degree from Harvard Law School.

He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg in 1964. Breyer was an assistant special prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, as well as Chief Counsel for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. He has three children with his wife Joanna Hare. Breyer was born in San Francisco, California. Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. MCT/Getty Images Supreme Court Justice Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. Alito, Jr. , 65, was nominated by President George W. Bush in 2005. He took his seat on Jan. 31, 2006 after the Senate confirmed his nomination in a 58-42 vote after Bush withdrew his nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers. Alito previously served as Department of Justice Assistant to the Solicitor General, Deputy Assistant Attorney General and U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey. He was appointed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in 1990. Alito received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and his law degree from Yale Law School, where he was the editor of the Yale Law Journal.

He is married to Martha-Ann and has two children. Alito was born in Trenton, New Jersey. Sonia Sotomayor MCT/Getty Images Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Sotomayor , 61, was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Barack Obama in 2009. She joined the court on Aug. 8, 2009 after the Senate voted 68-31 in support of her nomination. In 1991 President George H.W. Bush nominated her to the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, and she served in that role from 1992–1998. She was then nominated by President Bill Clinton to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where she served for 11 years. Sotomayor received her Bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and her law degree from Yale Law School, where she served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal. She was born in Bronx, New York. Elena Kagan Presidential Prayer Team STORE The Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary.

It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the “advice and consent” (majority vote) of the Senate. Once appointed, Justices effectively have life tenure, serving “during good Behavior”, which terminates only upon death, resignation, retirement, or conviction on impeachment. The Court meets in Washington, D.C. in the United States Supreme Court building. The Supreme Court is primarily an appellate court, but it has original jurisdiction over a small range of cases. We encourage you to pray for these leaders by name. United States Supreme Court Justices Antonin Gregory Scalia (born March 11, 1936) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan having previously served on the D.C. Circuit and in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and teaching law at the Universities of Virginia and Chicago. He is considered to be a core member of the conservative wing of the court, vigorously advancing textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation.

Assumed Office: September 26, 1986 Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, having been appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1988. Since the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, Kennedy is often considered the swing vote on many of the Court’s politically charged 5–4 decisions, although he reaches conservative results more often than not. Assumed Office: February 18, 1988 Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, having served since 1991. Justice Thomas is the second African American to serve on the nation’s highest court, after Justice Thurgood Marshall, whom he succeeded. Thomas grew up in Georgia, and was educated at the College of the Holy Cross and at Yale Law School. In 1974, he was appointed an Assistant Attorney General in Missouri (primarily handling tax matters), and subsequently practiced law there in the private sector.

In 1979, he became a legislative assistant to Missouri Senator John Danforth, and in 1981 was appointed as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. In 1982 Thomas was appointed Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and he served in that position until 1990 when President George H. W. Bush nominated him for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The advice and consent of the United States Senate was needed to approve the nomination, and it was easily obtained. Since joining the Court, Thomas is noted for asking few questions during oral argument of the cases; he has stated that he prefers to listen. Thomas has taken an originalist approach to judging, seeking to uphold what he sees as the original meaning of the Constitution and statutes. Moreover, he has often approached federalism issues in a way that limits the power of the federal government and expands power of state and local governments. At the same time, Thomas’ opinions have generally supported a strong executive branch within the federal government.

Assumed Office: October 19, 1991 Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg (born March 15, 1933) is an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton with the support of Republican Judiciary Chairman Senator Orrin Hatch in 1993 and generally votes with the liberal wing of the court. She is the second female Justice — Sandra Day O’Connor being the first — and the first Jewish woman to serve on the Court. Ginsburg spent a considerable portion of her career as an advocate for the equal citizenship status of women and men as a constitutional principle. She engaged in advocacy as a volunteer lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, and was a member of its board of directors and one of its general counsel in the 1970s. She served as a professor at Rutgers School of Law—Newark and Columbia Law School. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Assumed Office: August 10, 1993 Stephen Gerald Breyer (born August 15, 1938) is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1994, and known for his pragmatic approach to constitutional law, Breyer is generally associated with the more liberal side of the Court. Following a clerkship with Supreme Court Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg in 1964, Breyer became well-known as a law professor and lecturer at Harvard Law School starting in 1967. There he specialized in the area of administrative law, writing a number of influential text books that remain in use today. He held other prominent positions before being nominated for the Supreme Court, including special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, and assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. Assumed Office: August 3, 1994 Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. (born April 1, 1950) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed by President George W.

Bush and has served on the court since January 31, 2006. Raised in Hamilton Township, New Jersey and educated at Princeton University and Yale Law School, Alito served as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit prior to joining the Supreme Court. He is the 110th justice and the second Italian American to serve on the court. Alito is generally considered a fairly conservative jurist with a libertarian streak (especially on First Amendment issues related to religious affairs). Assumed Office: January 31, 2006 John Glover Roberts, Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is the 17th and current Chief Justice of the United States. He has served since 2005, having been nominated by President George W. Bush after the death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He is usually considered to be a judicial conservative. Roberts grew up in northern Indiana and was educated in a private boarding school before attending Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review.

After being admitted to the bar, he served as a law clerk for William Rehnquist before taking a position in the Attorney General’s office during the Reagan Administration. He went on to serve the Reagan Administration and the George H. W. Bush administration in the Department of Justice and the Office of the White House Counsel, before spending fourteen years in private law practice. During this time, he argued thirty-nine cases before the Supreme Court. In 2003, he was appointed as a judge of the D.C. Circuit by President George W. Bush, where he served until his nomination to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. When Chief Justice Rehnquist died before Roberts’s confirmation hearings, Bush renominated Roberts to fill the newly vacant center seat. Assumed Office: September 29, 2005 Sonia Sotomayor (born June 25, 1954) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. Sotomayor is the Court’s 111th justice, its first Hispanic justice, and its third female justice.

Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York City and is of Puerto Rican descent. Her father died when she was nine, and she was subsequently raised by her mother. Sotomayor graduated with an A.B., summa cum laude, from Princeton University in 1976 and received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal. She was an advocate for the hiring of Latino faculty at both schools. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for five years before entering private practice in 1984. She played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board. Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991, and her nomination was confirmed in 1992. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and she was confirmed in 1998.

On the Second Circuit, Sotomayor heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases and wrote about 380 opinions. Sotomayor has taught at the New York University School of Law and Columbia Law School. In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retired Justice David Souter. Her nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68–31. Assumed Office: August 6, 2009 Elena Kagan (born April 1960) is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. She was nominated by Democrat President Bark Obama in 2010. She is the first justice appointed without any prior experience as a judge since William Rehnquist in 1972, and is the fourth woman justice in the Court’s history. A legal analyst has praised her “eloquent voice” which he characterized as unusual for a relative newcomer to the Court.

Her liberal inclinations are said to be giving Justice Antonin Scalia “a run for his money.” Assumed Office: August 7, 2010 CONTACT INFORMATION Supreme Court divided in Texas affirmative action case - CNNPolitics.com Read: Supreme Court declines to take up ban on assault weapons It's the second time, Abigail Fisher, a white woman from Texas, has come to the court. In 2012, the justices heard arguments and then said nothing for eight months. Ultimately, they issued a narrow opinion sending the case back down to a lower court for another look. The short opinion was indicative that the justices are deeply divided on the issue. The lower court once again ruled in favor of UT and on Wednesday, eight justices (Justice Elena Kagan recused herself because she dealt with the case in her previous job as solicitor general) sat for another hour-and-a-half of arguments. Eight states currently have banned the use of race in admissions policy all together, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures: Arizona, California, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington.

Read: Supreme Court takes up 'one person, one vote' The Top Ten Percent program Back in 2008 Fisher was denied admission and sued, claiming discrimination based on race. In Texas, high school seniors who graduate at the top 10% of their class are automatically admitted to the public university of their choice. On top of that program, UT also considers race and other factors for admission. Since Fisher did not qualify for the program, she applied with other applicants -- some of whom were entitled to racial preferences. She was denied admission. Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Hollingsworth v. Perry (2013): The Supreme Court dismissed an appeal over California's Proposition 8 on jurisdictional grounds. The voter-approved ballot measure barring same-sex marriage was not defended by state officials, but rather a private party. This ruling cleared the way for same-sex marriage in California to resume, but left open-ended the legal language of 35 other states barring same-sex marriage. Take a look at other important cases decided by the high court. Hide Caption 16 of 17 Photos: Photos: Supreme Court cases that changed America Supreme Court cases that changed America – Marbury v.

Madison (1803): When Secretary of State James Madison, seen here, tried to stop Federal loyalists from being appointed to judicial positions, he was sued by William Marbury. Marbury was one of former President John Adams' appointees, and the court decided that although he had a right to the position, the court couldn't enforce his appointment. The case defined the boundaries of the executive and judicial branches of government. Hide Caption 17 of 17 Lawyers for Fisher say in court papers that since UT already had a race-neutral plan in place they shouldn't have layered on another program that takes race into consideration. Alito pointed to the Top Ten Percent program and suggested that it had been successful in increasing the diversity of the school. He said to Gregory Garre, a lawyer for the university, that he found "troubling" a suggestion "that there is something deficient about the African-American students and the Hispanic students" in the top 10% already. Alito suggested that the school in some way thought the students coming from the Top Ten percent were "not dynamic, They're not leaders.

They're not change agents." He added: "I don't know what the basis for that is." Speaking more broadly, Chief Justice John Roberts underlined his concern that the use of race by the school must pass a stringent standard of review from the Court. He told Garre, "We're talking about giving you the extraordinary power to consider race in making important decisions," he said. Roberts noted that court precedent from a 2003 case called Grutter v. Bollinger upheld an affirmative action plan at the University of Michigan law school, but suggested an end date in 25 years. "Grutter said that we did not expect these sort of problems to be around for 25 years, and that was 12 years ago. Are we going to hit that deadline?" Roberts asked. Controversial language from Scalia Justice Antonin Scalia pushed a point that had been made in some friend of the court briefs filed in the case. It concerns a theory called "Mismatch" popularized by authors Stuart Taylor Jr. and Richard Sander that suggests affirmative action programs don't always benefit minorities. Although Roberts had mentioned the theory in a different case in 2013, Scalia's language was blunt.

"There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well," he said. "One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas," he said. Read: Scalia questions place of some black students in elite colleges The conservatives on the bench were well aware that the case probably comes down to Justice Kennedy. Although early on he suggested the case might need to be sent back down to the lower court, by the end he seemed to move away from that notion. Garre noted that there had not been a full trial, and Kennedy asked "if you had a remand, you would not have put in much different or much more evidence than we have in the record right now." Sotomayor, Ginsberg The liberal justices indicated they saw no constitutional problems with the plan and were much more receptive to arguments made in favor of the University of Texas. Justice Sonia Sotomayor spoke up repeatedly.

Once she was cut off and she said with irritation, "Let me finish my point." She said that even without the Top Ten Percent program, the program put forward by the university complied with court precedent. She said that if a school isn't allowed to consider race as a part of a holistic review of a student, "then the holistic percentage, whatever it is, is going to be virtually all white." Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg questioned whether the Top Ten Percent program was race neutral as Fisher's lawyers contend. She called it "so obviously driven by one thing only, and that thing is race." She suggested she thought it wasn't a good substitute for an admissions program that allows race to be taken into consideration as one factor. "It's totally dependent upon having racially segregated neighborhoods, racially segregated schools, and it operates as a disincentive for a minority student to step out of that segregated community and attempt to get an integrated education." Fisher's case is being supported by the Project on Fair Representation, a conservative group also behind a case in 2013 that invalidated a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The group also backed a case heard at the court Tuesday challenging how states draw their legislative lines.

"UT failed to show that its pre-existing race-neutral admissions program could not achieve the desired level of diversity," her lawyers argued in court papers. "By holding that UT discriminated against Ms. Fisher and reversing the judgment below, the Court will not only vindicate her equal-protection rights, it will remind universities that the use of race in admissions must be a last resort -- not the rule." Fisher is not asking the court to forbid race-conscious programs all together, but if the court rules in her favor, it could make it so difficult for schools going forward that they may abandon attempts to consider race as one of many factors.

Outside of the court on Wednesday, Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said, "Conservative activist Ed Blum, who is behind this suit and similar ones, never questions the right of colleges to consider anything other than race -- like hobbies, gender, age or hometown." She added: "To say to a student that everything about you is relevant except for your race, strips away a part of that student's identity." Lawyers for the University say that the Top Ten Percent Program alone isn't enough because it is based on "just a single criteria" and it excludes consideration of "the broad array of factors that contribute to a genuinely diverse student body." They say the current program looks at each applicant as a whole person, "thus offsetting the one-dimensional aspect of the Top Ten Percent Law," and considers the applicant's race only as one factor among many to examine the student. They point out that in the past, attempts to use race-neutral efforts to achieve diversity including scholarships aimed at recruiting qualified students of all races from lower socioeconomic backgrounds have failed. "Nevertheless, UT experienced an immediate, and glaring, decline in enrollment among underrepresented minorities," the UT lawyers wrote.

According to the University, back in 1998, before it could take race into consideration as a factor for admissions, UT had 199 African American enrollees in a class of 6,744 (3% of the incoming class). By 2008, under the race-conscious policy at issue, that number nearly doubled. For Hispanics, the numbers grew to 20% in 2008. UT also says there is a major procedural issue that should block the justices from even reaching the merits of the case. They say that because Fisher graduated from LSU in 2008, she lacks the necessary injury -- or standing -- to bring the case before the justices. Although the issue of standing did not stop the court from hearing and deciding the case before, it was the first question asked by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg during oral arguments three years ago.

Question: Appointed by G. W. Bush in 2005, who is the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
Answer: John Roberts