Meet Amy Coney Barrett, The US Supreme Court's Youngest Justice
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On October 26, 2020, the US Senate voted 52-48 to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the 115th Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. The 48-year-old, who was nominated for the lifetime appointment by President Trump on September 26, 2020, will fill the vacancy left behind by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died from complications of pancreatic cancer on September 18, 2020.
Justice Barrett is the youngest person and only the fifth woman to serve on the nation's highest court. The mother of seven children, aged 8 to 19, is also the first female Supreme Court Justice with school-aged children.
During her October 26, 2020, ceremonial constitutional oath ceremony at the White House, Ms. Barrett said, "My fellow Americans, even though we judges don't face elections, we still work for you. It is your Constitution that establishes the rule of law and the judicial independence that is so central to it. The oath that I have solemnly taken tonight means at its core that I will do my job without any fear or favor and that I will do so independently of both the political branches and of my own preferences."
The oldest of seven children, Ms. Barrett grew up in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans, LA. After graduating magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa — the country's highest academic honor — with an undergraduate degree in English from Rhodes College in 1994, she went on to pursue law on a full-tuition scholarship at Notre Dame Law School.
Ms. Barrett graduated at the top of her class in 1997 and spent the next two years honing her skills as a judicial law clerk for Judge Laurence Silberman of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit and Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court. She then joined a boutique law firm specializing in litigation in Washington, DC, before returning to her alma mater, Notre Dame, as a law professor in 2002. Known for her sharp intellect and inclusiveness, Ms. Barrett was extremely popular with students and voted professor of the year multiple times. In 2017, President Trump selected Ms. Barrett to serve as a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, a position she held until her recent appointment to the US Supreme Court.
Resources: Vox.com, Wikipedia.org, NPR.org
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128 Comments
quarantinedabout 4 yearsI watched this live I think!- quarantinedabout 4 yearsWow! So cool!!!
bscabout 4 yearsWow, 48?? That's really cool!
makenzieglendenabout 4 yearsyes it's so true
dragonheartedabout 4 yearsSad Panda about rbg. 😥😥😥- dragonheartedabout 4 yearsDoes anybody else agree on the fact that there are way to many men in congress and that there should be more women in it? Wow, that sounds REALLY weird coming from a guy like me.
sokeefe_foreverabout 4 yearsI mean, there should be more women, but honorable women that take the place of someone equally as honorable or less honorable.
noiwantthecandyabout 4 yearsi agree but atill. this world needs to change
smartjerry238about 4 yearsYup!
patricianfosureabout 4 yearsUh somebody should get a job because they are good at it, nothing else, it is really cool that she is a girl, but she is also so smart, that's why she got the job
jangoabout 4 yearsi agree gender should not be a factor they're only more men because in the past men got better education. soon more women will have jobs in congress but they shouldn't get the job for their gender (same for men)
deppressedfox20about 4 yearsthis is a chance for us to take rbg's spot and make us proud its sad that rbg died but maybe this is an opportunity- dragonheartedabout 4 yearsCongrats for her being the youngest justice member I think that's every kids dream who has parents that are in congress, They want to be just like their mom or dad.
- sokeefe_foreverabout 4 yearsNone of my siblings are adopted though, but I'm so glad she adopted kids because I bet she can help them out alot!
kindnesstipsabout 4 yearsI'm adopted it is kind of sad- sokeefe_foreverabout 4 yearsYeah, it is sad😪
- sokeefe_foreverabout 4 yearsWow!!! Amazing, it's so cool that she has 7 kids! In my family, there is 11 kids, so I have 10 siblings! Everyone thinks that is a ton of kids, but to me it's normal😄.
- dragonheartedabout 4 yearsIt is pretty normal I have 10 sibs and one baby sister