Yesterday, Elena Kagan was sworn into the Supreme Court, becoming its 112th Justice and its fourth female justice. The judicial oath, which she took in front of family, new colleagues, and TV audiences, says, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on me, under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
The NY Times has some factoids about what her presence on the court means: "If her installation added diversity in some ways, though, it reinforced the court’s lack of it in other areas. Her addition means the court now includes neither Protestants nor anyone without an Ivy League background. Justice Kagan joins two other Jewish justices and six Catholics. She is the sixth justice to have studied at Harvard Law School (although Justice Ginsburg later transferred to and graduated from Columbia Law School); the other three graduated from Yale Law School. And she is the fourth justice to have grown up in New York City."
Fox News offers some details about the ceremony: Kagan's "brothers, Marc and Irving were seated in the front row of the room along with other family members. Justices Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor were also in attendance." And CNN adds, "Special guests were Cissy and Thurgood Marshall Jr., the widow and son of the late Justice Thurgood Marshall. The diminutive Kagan clerked for him in 1987-88, where she earned the affectionate nickname 'Shorty' from the legal and judicial pioneer."
