On this day in 1882, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter was born in Vienna, Austria. At the age of twelve, he moved to New York’s lower east side with his parents and five siblings. Despite not learning English until he came to the United States, he soon became an exceptional student. He graduated first in … Continue reading On This Day in Supreme Court History—November 15, 1882
On this day in 1991, National Public Radio first broke the story of Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. After graduating from Yale Law School, Hill worked as special counsel to Thomas, who was then head of the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. … Continue reading On This Day in Supreme Court History—October 6, 1991
On this day in 1986, Antonin Scalia was sworn in as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. At the same ceremony, William Rehnquist was sworn in as the sixteenth Chief Justice of the United States. President Ronald Reagan used the occasion to praise the two men for their commitment to “judicial constraint.” … Continue reading On This Day in Supreme Court History—September 26, 1986
On this day in 1954, William Brennan gave a speech that cost him a unanimous vote in the Senate when he was later nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. Brennan, then a judge on the New Jersey Supreme Court, spoke at the St. Patrick’s Day dinner of the Charitable Irish Society of Boston. He chose … Continue reading On This Day in Supreme Court History—March 17, 1954
On this day in 1943, President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Wiley B. Rutledge to the Supreme Court. Rutledge was President Roosevelt’s eighth and final appointee to the Court. At the time of his appointment, he had been serving on the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit since 1939. The Senate confirmed … Continue reading On This Day in Supreme Court History—February 11, 1943
On this day in 1937, Bishop William Manning, head of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of New York, gave a rather unusual Ash Wednesday sermon. His topic: President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s proposal to expand the Supreme Court. When Roosevelt announced his controversial “court-packing” plan (as its critics dubbed it) several days earlier, he framed it as … Continue reading On This Day in Supreme Court History—February 10, 1937
On this day in 1813, the Supreme Court decided Mima Queen v. Hepburn, an appeal of a suit of an enslaved woman who claimed her freedom. The Court rejected her appeal, holding that the hearsay evidence Mima Queen relied on to establish that her great grandmother was a free woman of color who was wrongly … Continue reading On This Day in Supreme Court History—February 5, 1813
On this day in 1898, Justice Joseph McKenna took his oath of office to serve on the Supreme Court. President William McKinley nominated McKenna to the Court on December 16, 1897, to fill the seat of Justice Stephen J. Field, who had retired. McKenna was serving as President McKinley’s Attorney General at the time. The … Continue reading On This Day in Supreme Court History—January 26, 1898
On this day in 1801, President John Adams nominated John Marshall to be the Chief Justice of the United States. The vacancy in the Court arose when Chief Justice Oliver Ellsworth resigned on December 15, 1800. Ellsworth was in France, where Adams had sent him to negotiate a treaty to end the 1798-1800 “quasi-war” between … Continue reading This Day in Supreme Court History—January 20, 1801
On this day in 1972, Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist were sworn in as the 99th and 100th members of the Supreme Court. They filled vacancies that had been created several months earlier when Justices Hugo Black and John Harlan retired. Both had fading health. Justice Black retired on September 17, 1971, and died just … Continue reading This Day in Supreme Court History—January 7, 1972