A COMMITMENT TO PUBLIC SERVICE

MATTHIAS BOXLER ’04 (M)

From history major to associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, the career path of the Hon. Elena Kagan grabbed the interest of a small group of Salve Regina students who met privately with her for lunch in the hour before she took the stage to address an audience of 1,000 students, faculty, sta and invited guests who were gathered on the Gerety Hall lawn on Sept. 19, 2022.

As an undergraduate at Princeton University, history was Kagan’s rst love. She worked on the university paper and decided during her senior year that she would pursue her Ph.D. in the discipline and ultimately become a college professor. en she decided to switch it up.

“I really enjoyed her talking about the progression of her career,” said history and secondary education major Beth Nickerson ’23, one of 15 Pell Honors students to meet with Kagan along with the program’s director Dr. William Leeman, professor of history. “You can have a plan but be exible with that, Nickerson said. Other things may come up that o er great opportunities.”

Talia Williams ’23 said Justice Kagan created a great environment and made all of the students feel comfortable during the lunch. “It was an absolute honor and humbling to be able to speak with someone so intelligent and so personable,” said Alisha Lopez ’23. Kagan’s high-pro le visit helped Salve Regina kick o its yearlong 75th anniversary celebration featuring a schedule of events highlighting the University’s history as a transformative, academic community ful lling the mercy promise of its founders, the Sisters of Mercy.

“Given our history, we wanted to celebrate a woman whose personal story re ects the progress of women in American society since the University’s founding,” said Dr. Kelli J. Armstrong, president, who introduced Kagan. “We also wanted to highlight for our students, for our alumni, and for the broader community, the enduring value of service to others, so important to us here at Salve.”

For Kagan, who was interviewed on stage by Dr. Jim Ludes, vice president for strategic initiatives, this marked her second trip to Newport. e rst was in 2013 to deliver the keynote at Touro Synagogue for the 66th reading of the letter George Washington wrote to the Jewish population of Newport guaranteeing religious freedom to all.

“ is is such a beautiful campus and the more I’ve learned about this University in the days and weeks leading up to this event, the more impressed I’ve become,” Kagan said. “It’s a real honor to be here and to be with people who are so deeply committed to community service of various kinds.” e event attracted considerable national media attention from many of the nation’s top news outlets and Court experts who either attended in person or monitored the University’s livestream. Kagan’s talk was covered by C-SPAN, the Boston Globe, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, USAToday, Politico and many others, reaching a combined audience in excess of 700 million, according to the media monitoring service CISION.

In addition to talking about the struggles of a deeply divided nation, Kagan shared her thoughts on the need for clear distinction between policy and law, on public con dence in the Court, and on the importance of precedent during her wide-ranging conversation. Her visit coincided with a nation embroiled in divisive political rhetoric leading into the 2022 midterm elections.

“It’s impossible for any citizen to look around and not understand that this country is facing challenges, not the least of which is that the country is so divided,” Kagan said. “ e question of how we work ourselves through that, not just as judges, but how all citizens work through that, is an important one.”

Kagan said it should almost go without saying that people who disagree with each other can be friends, which elicited a round of applause from the audience. She referenced her friendship with her “hunting buddy,” former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. “Justice Scalia was a master at building personal friendships across disagreements and he used to say if you take it personally, you’re in the wrong job. And I think it’s true for life. We should be able to separate these things.”

Kagan talked about her many mentors at every stage of her career, from her mother to her senior thesis advisor who taught her how to write, to the judges she clerked for when she graduated law school – Abner Mikva of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and Justice urgood Marshall of the U.S. Supreme Court during the 1987 term.

Kagan, who 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, was asked about the distinction between policy and law.

“It’s really important that there be a divide between the two,” said Kagan. “I think the Court does best when it keeps to the legal issues, when it doesn’t allow personal political views, personal policy views to a ect or infect its judging. e worst moments for the Court have been times when judges have allowed that to happen. e very worst moments have been times when judges have essentially re ected one party’s or one ideology’s set of views in their legal decisions. at just can’t and shouldn’t happen.”

While there was no mention of the Dobbs vs.

Jackson case or the overturning of Roe vs. Wade, Kagan said the Court’s power of judicial review should not be scrapped, though she thinks that power needs to be exercised with a great deal of modesty and restraint.

“ e Court should think twice and then maybe should think twice again before doing so,” Kagan said. “ e Court shouldn’t be wandering around just inserting itself into every hot-button issue in America. And it especially shouldn’t be doing that in a way that re ects one ideology or one set of political views over another.”

And she o ered her opinion about why the standard for overturning precedent should be very high. “Law gives rights to people that people ought to be able to rely on,” she said. “A second reason is it is an expression of judicial humility and believe me when I tell you, the judges need to be reminded sometimes the virtues of being humble.”

Kagan also said it is when a court stops acting like a court that makes people afraid. “When you see the composition of the court change and then the whole legal system being kind of up for grabs, and legal rules getting reversed here and there, that’s what makes people worry and that’s what ought to make people worry that something else is going on here other than applying legal principles fairly and consistently,” she said. “It just doesn’t look like law when the new judges appointed by a new president come in and start just tossing out the old stu .”

Regarding the public’s con dence in the Supreme Court, Kagan said the most important thing the Court can do is go about its business. “ e thing that builds up reservoirs of public con dence is the court acting like a court and not acting like an extension of the political process,” she said.

When asked what advice she might o er to people worried about the health of American democracy, Kagan turned it back to Salve students.

“I don’t know if I’m the one who should be giving advice,” she said. “Earlier this morning I was talking to some of the students here at Salve and I was thinking maybe they should be the ones who are giving advice. In truth, I’m never more optimistic about things as when I talk to young people. And in a place like this, with its commitment to public service, I don’t think you need advice from me.

“I’m sure that the students here have a wide variety of views about all kinds of issues,” Kagan continued, “but it seems to me that they have the sort of commitment which you hope every citizen in this country has – to making the country, the world a better place. at’s sort of what it’s all about, making your community, your country, your world a little bit better for your having been there.”