The Biographical Notes stop at Justice Kagan. Four members of the current Court were appointed after that appendix was written, which means the notes are missing four of the nine people who will decide the cases you are about to read. This supplement fills the gap. It follows the same plan as the notes it supplements — background, route to the Court, and something about how the Justice actually works — and it is written for this course rather than borrowed.
A word on what follows. Describing a sitting Justice's method is not the same as agreeing or disagreeing with it, and nothing here is an endorsement or a criticism. Where I say what a Justice's approach is, I point you at an opinion where you can go check for yourself. That is the habit this course is trying to build.
NEIL M. GORSUCH (1967– )
Born in Denver. Columbia (B.A. 1988), Harvard Law (J.D. 1991), and — unusually for the current Court — a doctorate: a D.Phil. in law from Oxford in 2004, written under John Finnis on the right to assistance in suicide and euthanasia. He clerked for Judge David Sentelle on the D.C. Circuit and then, in a single 1993–94 Term, for both Justice Byron White and Justice Anthony Kennedy. Ten years in private practice in Washington followed, then a stint as Principal Deputy and Acting Associate Attorney General at the Justice Department, and eleven years on the Tenth Circuit. Nominated by President Trump in February 2017 to the seat left by Justice Scalia’s death, and confirmed 54–45 on 7 April 2017.
His stated method is textualism in statutory cases and originalism in constitutional ones: the words the legislature chose, not the purposes it may have had. What makes him worth watching is that he follows the method where it goes, including away from the result his colleagues expected. Read his majority in Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) — Title VII’s word “sex,” read to its literal consequence, over textualist dissents from Justice Alito and Justice Kavanaugh. Two other lines run through his work: structural limits on delegated power, in his Gundy v. United States (2019) dissent urging revival of the nondelegation doctrine, which you will meet in Module 5; and federal Indian law, in his majority in McGirt v. Oklahoma (2020).
BRETT M. KAVANAUGH (1965– )
Born in Washington, D.C., and educated entirely at Yale (B.A. 1987, J.D. 1990). Three clerkships — Judge Stapleton on the Third Circuit, Judge Kozinski on the Ninth, and Justice Kennedy in the 1993 Term, the same year Gorsuch clerked for Kennedy. He then worked in the Solicitor General’s office, spent four years as an Associate Independent Counsel on the Whitewater investigation, practiced privately, and served President George W. Bush as Associate Counsel and later as Staff Secretary. Twelve years on the D.C. Circuit followed. Nominated by President Trump in July 2018 to Justice Kennedy’s seat — the Justice for whom he had clerked — and confirmed on 6 October 2018 by 50–48, with one Senator voting present and one not voting.
He writes separately more often than most, and his separate opinions tend to be about how the Court should decide rather than only what it should decide. His most durable contribution is a worked-out account of when precedent may be overruled, set out in his concurrence in Ramos v. Louisiana (2020) and applied in his concurrence in Dobbs (2022). His textualism does not track a predictable side: in Sackett v. EPA (2023) he concurred only in the judgment, joined by Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson, disputing the majority’s reading of the Clean Water Act.
AMY CONEY BARRETT (1972– )
Born in New Orleans. Rhodes College (B.A. 1994) and Notre Dame Law (J.D. 1997, where she took the Hoynes Prize). She clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman on the D.C. Circuit and then for Justice Scalia. After two years in Washington practice she went into teaching, and stayed: fifteen years on the Notre Dame faculty, 2002 to 2017, with a year at George Washington before that and a visiting year at Virginia. Three years on the Seventh Circuit. Nominated by President Trump in September 2020 to Justice Ginsburg’s seat and confirmed 52–48 on 26 October 2020.
She came to the Court from full-time scholarship, and her separate opinions read like it: they interrogate the method rather than the outcome. The clearest example is her concurrence in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021) — she agreed with a unanimous judgment but wrote separately to ask what would replace Employment Division v. Smith before she would vote to overrule it, which is a scholar’s question rather than a judge’s. She has since pressed the same kind of question about historical reasoning itself: see her partial concurrence in Vidal v. Elster (2024), arguing that history-and-tradition is not adequate as a standalone method, and her concurrence in United States v. Rahimi (2024) on the level of generality at which historical analogues should be drawn. Both are worth reading against the majority opinions they respond to.
KETANJI BROWN JACKSON (1970– )
Born in Washington, D.C., raised in Miami. Harvard (A.B. 1992) and Harvard Law (J.D. 1996). Three clerkships, ending with Justice Breyer in the 1999 Term. Her career before the bench is the most varied on the current Court: private practice in Boston and Washington, two tours at the United States Sentencing Commission — first as Assistant Special Counsel, later as Vice Chair — and two years as an Assistant Federal Public Defender in the District of Columbia. She is the first Justice to have served as a federal defender. Eight years as a district judge on the D.C. district court, then a year on the D.C. Circuit. Nominated by President Biden in February 2022 to Justice Breyer’s seat, confirmed 53–47 on 7 April 2022, and sworn in on 30 June 2022 when Justice Breyer’s retirement took effect.
Her separate writing characteristically engages historical material rather than declining to, and argues that the fuller record cuts against the majority’s narrower reading. Her dissent in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina (2023) is the best-known example, built on the Reconstruction Congress’s own race-conscious legislation. Note the detail, because it is easy to get wrong: she took no part in the companion Harvard case, having served on Harvard’s Board of Overseers, so her dissent runs only to the North Carolina case. She also wrote separately in Trump v. United States (2024), which you read in Module 1. Fourteen years as a trial judge and a defender show up in a recurring practical question: how will this test actually operate on the ground? See her concurrence in Rahimi (2024).
Where these facts come from
Career, clerkship, appointment and commission dates: the Federal Judicial Center, Biographical Directory of Article III Federal Judges, fjc.gov/history/judges — a work of the United States government. Confirmation votes: the Senate’s own roll-call records at senate.gov. Seats and succession: the Supreme Court’s biographies page and its members list. Gorsuch’s doctoral thesis and supervisor: the Oxford University Research Archive.
If you want more than a sketch, the two places to go are the FJC directory, which is exhaustive and free, and Oyez, which carries argument audio alongside its biographies.