Obama's SC Nominee: Hates Military, But Believes In Indefinite Detention Without Trial

From Wikipedia:

Dean of Harvard Law School

Lawrence Summers appointed Kagan the first female dean of Harvard Law School in 2003.^[10] She succeeded Robert C. Clark, who had served as dean for over a decade. The focus of her tenure was on improving student satisfaction. Efforts included constructing new facilities and reforming the first-year curriculum, as well as aesthetic changes and creature comforts, such as free morning coffee. She has been credited for employing a consensus-building leadership style, which surmounted the school's previous ideological discord.

She also inherited a $400 million capital campaign, "Setting the Standard," in 2003. It ended in 2008 with a record breaking $476 million raised, 19% more than the original goal.^[11] Kagan made a number of prominent new hires, increasing the size of the faculty considerably.

During her deanship, Kagan supported a long-standing policy barring military recruiters from campus, because she felt that the military's Don't ask, don't tell policy discriminated against gays and lesbians. According to Campus Progress,

As dean, Kagan supported a lawsuit intended to overturn the Solomon Amendment so military recruiters might be banned from the grounds of schools like Harvard. When a federal appeals court ruled the Pentagon could not withhold funds, she banned the military from Harvard’s campus once again. The case was challenged in the Supreme Court, which ruled the military could indeed require schools to allow recruiters if they wanted to receive federal money. Kagan, though she allowed the military back, simultaneously urged students to demonstrate against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.^[12][13]

In October 2003, Kagan transmitted an e-mail to students and faculty deploring that military recruiters had shown up on campus in violation of the school's anti-discrimination policy. It read, "This action causes me deep distress. I abhor the military's discriminatory recruitment policy." She also wrote that it was "a profound wrong -- a moral injustice of the first order."^[14]

[edit]Solicitor General nomination

On January 5, 2009, President-elect Barack Obama announced he would nominate Kagan to be Solicitor General.^[15] Before this appointment she had limited courtroom experience. She had never argued a case at trial,^[16] and had not argued before the Supreme Court of the United States. This is not uncommon, however, as at least two previous Solicitors General, Robert Bork and Kenneth Starr, had no previous appellate experience at the Supreme Court, though Starr served as a Circuit Court Judge prior to acting as Solicitor General.^[17]

At her confirmation hearing, Kagan also drew criticism for arguing that battlefield law, including indefinite detention without a trial, could apply outside of traditional battlefields.^[18]

Kagan was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 19, 2009, by a vote of 61 to 31.^[19] She made her first appearance in oral argument before the Supreme Court on September 9, 2009, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.^[20]

[edit]Indefinite detention without trial

During her hearings to be confirmed as Solicitor General, the New York Times paraphrases Kagan as saying "that someone suspected of helping finance Al Qaeda should be subject to battlefield law -- indefinite detention without a trial -- even if he were captured in a place like the Philippines rather than a physical battle zone."^[21]