Keely Clifford ‘22 | Staff Writer
On June 27, Justice Anthony Kennedy retired from his role on the Supreme Court.
Justice Kennedy was a moderate justice on the Supreme Court for nearly three decades, championing causes like gay marriage and LGBTQ+ rights but failing to support issues like gun control measures.
Kennedy was often a swing vote, and the Trump administration was eager for his retirement. On July 9, the Trump Administration announced that they had nominated Brett Kavanaugh, who served as a law clerk for Justice Kennedy from 1993 to 1994 and has been on the Washington DC Court of Appeals since 2006.
Hailing from Bethesda, Md., Kavanaugh obtained his J.D. from Yale Law School in 1990 and rose to become a respected conservative figure in the world of Washington law.
Some of Judge Kavanaugh’s most notable legal moments include trying to block a seventeen year old detainee from getting an abortion in a detention camp in 2018 (arguing that an unlawful immigrant should not be able to get “an abortion on demand”), trying to block his colleagues from requiring the Affordable Care cover contraception in 2015 and his dissent in the case of a ban on semiautomatic weapons in 2011.
In 2017, he held that the Environmental Protection Act lacked the authority to control the use of hydrofluorocarbons, which has a direct link to climate change. His 2009 Minnesota Law Review article suggested that a sitting President should not be subject to criminal investigation until after impeachment.
The country is currently divided over Kavanaugh as his confirmation hearings are being held.
