Not new but definitely related. SC Justice Elena Kagen.
Before Clinton left office, he nominated Kagan to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals D.C. Circuit. Her nomination languished with the Senate Judiciary Committee, however, and in 1999 Kagan returned to higher education. Starting as a visiting professor at Harvard Law, Kagan quickly climbed the ladder from professor in 2001 to dean in 2003. During her five years as the dean of Harvard Law, Kagan made big changes at the institution, including faculty expansion, curriculum changes and the development of new campus facilities.
First Female Solicitor General
After fellow Harvard alumnus Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, he selected Kagan for the role of solicitor general. In January 2009, Kagan received her endorsement from the previous solicitors general and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2009. With her confirmation, she became the first woman to serve as solicitor general of the United States.
Supreme Court Justice
Just two months after her confirmation as solicitor general, President Obama nominated Kagan to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court bench after his retirement. On August 5, 2009, she was confirmed by Senate with a vote of 63–37, making her the fourth woman to sit on the high court. At 50 years old, she also became the youngest member of the current court, as well as the only justice on the bench who has no previous judicial experience. In addition, her approval put three female justices—Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor—on the country's highest court for the first time in U.S. history.
In 2015, Kagan continued to make history when she sided with the majority in two landmark Supreme Court rulings. On June 25 she was one of the six justices to uphold a critical component of the 2010 Affordable Care Act—often referred to as Obamacare—in King v. Burwell. The decision allows the federal government to continue providing subsidies to Americans who purchase health care through "exchanges," regardless of whether they are state or federally operated. Kagan is considered to have been instrumental in the ruling, having introduced logic in favor of the law during oral arguments earlier in the case. The majority ruling, read by Chief Justice John Roberts, was a massive victory for President Barack Obama and makes the Affordable Care Act difficult to undo. Conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia were in dissent, with Scalia presenting a scathing dissenting opinion to the Court.
On June 26, the Supreme Court handed down its second historic decision in as many days, with Kagan again joining the majority (5–4) ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that made same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states. Although Kagan had made the statement during her 2009 confirmation hearings that "there is no federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage," her comments during oral arguments suggested she had perhaps changed her opinion. She was joined in the majority by Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with Roberts reading the dissenting opinion this time.