Elena Kagan confirmed to U.S. Supreme Court

Washington - In a final vote of 63-37 the United States Senate has confirmed Elena Kagan to the United States Supreme Court making her the fourth woman ever to be granted the honor.

Kagan has spent a lifetime practicing law and is the current U.S. Solicitor General. She served as dean of Harvard Law School from July 2003 to March 2009. She graduated Harvard Law School in 1986 where she served as the supervisory editor of the Harvard Law Review. She clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1988. She has been faculty at the University of Chicago Law and was tenured at the prestigious law school in 1995. In 1995 she began serving President Bill Clinton in the White House. By 1999 she had worked in three different capacities for President Clinton including Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Counsel. Kagan's previous posts in the political arena have allowed her to work among all three branches of U.S. legislative branches making her well versed in matters of government as well as the judicial process. U.S. senators mostly voted along party lines as only five republican senators voted for Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens who announced his retirement from the U.S. Supreme Court April 2010. Sen. Lindsey Graham from South Carolina was the only republican senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee to support Kagan's nomination to the Senate in a 13-6 vote. Only nine republicans voted to confirm President Barack Obama's last appointee, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in 2009. Much has been said on both sides of the political argument surrounding Kagan's confirmation. Sen. Scott Brown from the state of Massachusetts, Kagan's home state, voted against her telling USA Today

"When it comes to the Supreme Court, experience matters," he said. "No classroom can substitute for the courtroom itself."

Democrats were decidedly more upbeat in their analysis of Kagan. Sen. Chris Dodd from Connecticut told USA Today Kagan is a "superbly qualified nominee" and reminds American citizens many a justice have served the nation's high court "without having worn a judge's robe." Kagan is the 112th comfirmed Justice to the U.S. Supreme Court. She is a graduate of Princeton University where she majored in history and has a masters in philosophy from Worcester College, Oxford University.