On his first day at work, Brett Kavanaugh has ensured that the elite group of law clerks in the Supreme Court is the most diverse in its history.
Kavanaugh’s four new clerks are all women. Additionally, of the six other clerks who worked for him as an appeals court judge and are now on the staffs of other Supreme Court justices, four more are women.
In terms of racial diversity, out of the three black clerks at the Supreme Court, one works for Kavanaugh and another previously worked for him.
With Kavanaugh’s arrival, there are 21 women among the 41 clerks — the first time there has been a majority of women. Kavanaugh’s supporters contend that the fact that eight of those 21 have clerked for him at one time or another demonstrates his commitment to women’s rights.
Conservatives have already drawn attention to Kavanaugh’s staff diversity compared to that of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the most liberal member of the court. She has had one black clerk out of more than 100 since joining the court in 1993.
Kavanaugh will make his Supreme Court debut Tuesday, taking his seat after one of the most bruising and political battles for an open seat in the court’s history.
[Read: ‘Proven innocent’: Trump hails GOP victory as Kavanaugh sworn in]
He set to work quickly after the Senate confirmed his nomination in a 50-48 vote, hiring Kim Jackson — who is black — Shannon Grammel, Megan Lacy, and Sara Nommensen as his clerks. According to Above the Law, the four were provisionally hired before three women accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.
“Women still face many barriers in the American workplace, and all of us have a responsibility to address that problem,” Kavanaugh said Monday night during a ceremonial swearing-in at the White House.
During his Senate testimony, Kavanaugh told how he was shocked when he read a New York Times article in 2006 that reported that just seven out of 37 Supreme Court clerks were women.
Kavanaugh will head to One First Street to participate in his first oral argument as a Supreme Court justice, with the high court scheduled to hear four cases across a two-day span.
On Tuesday, Kavanaugh and his fellow justices will hear two cases involving a federal law that requires repeat offenders to receive more lengthy sentences.
On Wednesday, the court will consider one case involving the Department of Homeland Security’s power to detain illegal immigrants who have committed other crimes and were already detained for those crimes, and a second involving a U.S. Navy sailor who was diagnosed with lung cancer caused by exposure to asbestos.
Kavanaugh’s first day on the bench comes after a heated fight over his nomination, which kicked off the night President Trump announced the federal judge as his pick to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court and was roiled after Christine Blasey Ford accused Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her 36 years ago, a claim Kavanaugh categorically denied.
The ensuing battle over Kavanaugh’s nomination has cast a political cloud over the Supreme Court. But inside the courtroom, it may be business as usual when the eight justices and their newest colleague convene Tuesday morning.
“I think [Tuesday] is likely to be a little anticlimactic in a lot of ways,” Carolyn Shapiro, co-director of the Institute on the Supreme Court of the United States at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, said.
Shapiro, who was a Supreme Court clerk for Justice Stephen Bryer, one of the court’s liberals, added: “I think the courtroom will be packed because of the excitement of seeing him on the bench, but I suspect it will proceed in the very normal way.”
Clues as to how Kavanaugh may be as a justice come from his 12-year tenure on the federal bench.
“If we want to know what kind of justice he’ll be, I think we just have to look at what kind of judge he’s been,” Justin Walker, an assistant law professor at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law and former Kavanaugh clerk, said. “He’s always been a polite questioner but also someone who asks challenging questions. I’m certain he’ll be prepared for [Tuesday’s] arguments even though he just started the job a couple days ago.”
The Senate’s vote Saturday to confirm Kavanaugh cemented a conservative majority on the Supreme Court for decades to come.
Following his confirmation by the Senate, Kavanaugh took the constitutional and judicial oaths of office, administered by Chief Justice John Roberts and Kennedy, respectively.
Kavanaugh was at the court Sunday, according to reports, and headed to the White House for his swearing-in ceremony with Trump during a prime-time event Monday night.
“Those who step forward to serve our country deserve a fair and dignified evaluation, not a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception,” Trump said during the event.
“What happened to the Kavanaugh family violates every notion of fairness, decency and due process. In our country, a man or a woman must always be presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. And with that, I must state that you, sir, under historic scrutiny were proven innocent.”
The Supreme Court last welcomed a new justice last year, when Justice Neil Gorsuch filled the seat vacated by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
In his first oral argument in April 2017, Gorsuch was an eager participant, asking 22 questions.
Shapiro predicted that when it comes to Kavanaugh, “I don’t see any reason to think we’ll see anything different.”
“I would imagine he has some interest in presenting normalcy to the people in the courtroom, the other justices, law clerks, everyone who’s there,” she said.
Among the justices, too, there may be a desire to move past the confirmation fight and instead focus on the work before it.
“I’m hopeful that the people will see the difference between the confirmation process and the work of the court itself,” Walker said. “The confirmation process is driven by a very politicized Congress, and for decades, some people in Congress have done their best to break the confirmation process. But they can’t break the Supreme Court.”
“The reputation of the court depends on how the justices do their jobs, and I expect the justices to approach their job in a thoughtful way,” he continued. “In particular, I expect Justice Kavanaugh to earn the public’s respect by being the same kind of justice that he’s been.”
