

But her physical condition will prevent her from continuing that work, she said. “While the final chapter of my life with dementia may be trying, nothing has diminished my gratitude and deep appreciation for the countless blessings in my life.”Īfter she retired, she wrote, she made a commitment to spend her remaining years advocating for civic education. “Since many people have asked about my current status and activities, I want to be open about these changes, and while I am still able, share some personal thoughts,” Justice O’Connor wrote in the letter. In a letter addressed to “friends and fellow Americans,” Justice O’Connor, 88, wrote that she was told she had early-stage dementia “some time ago” and that doctors believed it was most likely Alzheimer’s disease. Though she typically votes with the liberal justices, Kagan is considered more centrist and has been referred to as a “bridge builder.Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman to serve as a justice on the United States Supreme Court and a critical swing vote for much of her tenure, said on Tuesday that she had dementia and had decided to withdraw from public life as the disease advanced.

In 1987, she clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who gave her the nickname “shorty” (Marshall, at 6-foot-2, towered over Kagan, who is 5-foot-3).Ī longtime law professor, Kagan taught at the University of Chicago Law School before moving on to Harvard Law. Kagan went to Princeton for her undergraduate degree and earned her law degree from Harvard in 1986 she was editor of the Harvard Law Review. solicitor general under Obama - the first woman to hold that title - and was the first-ever woman named dean of Harvard Law School, serving from 2003-09. Photo: Steve Petteway, AP, Illustration: USA TODAY Networkīorn in New York, Elena Kagan was somewhat of an unconventional choice for the Supreme Court because she is one of a handful of justices who have never previously worked as a judge.īefore being nominated to the court in 2010 by President Barack Obama, Kagan served as an adviser to President Bill Clinton, worked briefly as the U.S. Women of the Century: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Eleanor Roosevelt and Sonia Sotomayor on DC list of influential women She wrote a memoir, "My Beloved World," in 2013. Court of Appeals for a year over fears she might be headed to the Supreme Court.ĭemocratic President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor to the Supreme Court when Justice David Souter retired. Five years later, Republican senators delayed Sotomayor's appointment to the U.S. Sotomayor was appointed as a federal judge in the Southern District of New York in 1992 by President George H.W. After graduating in 1979, Sotomayor worked as an assistant district attorney and in private practice in New York.

The daughter of immigrants from Puerto Rico, Sotomayor graduated summa cum laude from Princeton in 1976, then attended Yale Law School, where she edited the law journal. She has served as an associate justice since 2009. Sonia Sotomayor, a native of the Bronx, is America's first Latina Supreme Court justice. Photo: Jasper Colt, USA TODAY, Illustration: USA TODAY Network
