Antonin Scalia

Antonin Scalia
Current Court Information:
Supreme Court of the United States
Title:	Associate Justice
Service:
Appointed by:	Ronald Reagan
Approval vote:	98-0
Active:	9/26/1986-Present
Preceded by:	William Rehnquist
Past post:	District of Columbia Court of Appeals
Past term:	1982-1986
Personal History
Born:	March 11, 1936
Home State:	Trenton, New Jersey
Bachelors:	Georgetown U., B.A., 1957
Law School:	Harvard Law, J.D., 1960

Antonin Gregory Scalia is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed the the court by Republican President Ronald Reagan on June 24, 1986.

Judicial philosophy

Scalia is considered to be a core member of the conservative wing of the court. He is a vigorous proponent of textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation, and a passionate critic of the idea of a "living Constitution."

Early life

Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey. A practicing Roman Catholic, he attended Xavier High School, a Jesuit school in Manhattan. He graduated first in his class and summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts from Georgetown College (Georgetown University) in 1957. While at Georgetown, he also studied at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland and went on to study law at Harvard Law, where he was a Notes Editor for the Harvard Law Review. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law in 1960, becoming a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University the following year. The fellowship allowed him to travel throughout Europe during 1960–1961.

Career

Scalia began his legal career at Jones, Day, Cockley and Reavis in Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked from 1961 to 1967, before becoming a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia in 1967. In 1971, he entered public service, working as the general counsel for the Office of Telecommunications Policy under President Richard Nixon, where one of his principal assignments was to formulate federal policy for the growth of cable television. From 1972 to 1974, he was the chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, before serving from 1974 to 1977 in the Ford administration as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel.

Following Ford's defeat by Jimmy Carter, Scalia returned to academia, first at the University of Chicago Law School from 1977 to 1982, and then as Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center and Stanford University. He also taught as a Visiting Professor in the Tulane University Law School summer abroad program. Scalia was chairman of the American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law, 1981–1982, and its Conference of Section Chairmen, 1982–1983.

In 1982, President Ronald Reagan appointed Scalia to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Four years later, in 1986, Reagan nominated him to replace William Rehnquist as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States after Rehnquist had been nominated by Reagan to serve as Chief Justice of the United States. Scalia was approved by the Senate in a vote of 98-0. He took his seat on September 26, 1986, becoming the first Italian-American Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. There was very little controversy to his rise to Supreme Court Justice, partly attributed to the elevation of Rehnquist to Chief Justice, who received a lot more coverage.

Legally Speaking discussion

Justice Scalia at Hastings College of Law - 2010

In October 2010, Justice Scalia participated in an interview with the University of California Hastings College of Law. To view that discussion, please click on the video on the right hand side of this page.

See also

• Supreme Court of the United States
• History of the Supreme Court

External links

• Reuters, "Justice Scalia defends Bush v. Gore ruling," April 24, 2008
• The New York, Profiles, "Supreme Confidence," March 28, 2005

References

Federal judicial offices
Preceded by: Roger Robb	DC Circuit Court of Appeals 1982–1986	Succeeded by: David Sentelle
Preceded by: William Rehnquist	Supreme Court 1986–present	Succeeded by: NA