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ID DATA

Antonin Scalia

Supreme Court Associate Justice

The "Arnold Schwarzenegger" of American jurisprudence.

Age at Oath: 50
Senate Vote: 98-0
Nickname: "Nino" by friends and family.
Colleagues refer to the frequent short case-related memos he sends them as "Ninograms."
Once sworn in, he was the nation's youngest and first Italian-American Supreme Court Justice.
An opinionated and colorful jurist, Scalia has a dynamic personality; he defies simple characterization. Photo: Animated Scalia, 9k.

Its been said that on a bench lined with solemn gray figures who often sat as silently as pigeons on a railing, Scalia stood out like a talking parrot.

His confrontational style has scared many attorneys. One litigator even described his action as those of a big cat batting around a ball of yarn.

A Supreme Court observer once noted that if the mind were muscle and Court sessions were televised, Scalia would be the Arnold Schwarzenegger of American jurisprudence.

Personal Life

Born a second-generation America in Trenton, New Jersey, on March 11, 1936, Scalia grew up in Queens, New York. He was the only child of S. Eugene Scalia and his Catherine Panaro. His father's foreign birth and mother's immigrant upbringing created a strong Italian heritage for him. His father was a professor of Romance languages and his mother taught school. At age five, his family moved to Queens when his father accepted a position at Brooklyn College.

"Nino" first attended public school in Queens, then attended St. Francis Xavier aka Xavier High School, a Catholic and Jesuit military prep school in Manhattan. His intellect and work resulted in graduating first in his class. While attending law school, Scalia met and became engaged to Maureen McCarthy, an English major who was attending nearby Radcliffe College. They married September 10, 1960, and share a strong mutual faith in Catholicism.

Family of eleven.

Together, Antonin and Maureen had nine children: Ann Forrest, Eugene, John Francis, Catherine Elisabeth, Mary Clare, Paul David (now a priest in the Catholic Diocese of Arlington at St. Rita's Catholic Church), Matthew, Christopher James, and Margaret Jane. When the Scalias moved to Chicago in 1977, the family had grown so large they had to buy a former fraternity house to accomodate them.

Staunch conservative.

Scalia expresses nothing but humility about his job as Justice, once telling a conference full of law students that he felt 'no sense of power whatsoever' from his position. Still, as his role on the Court changes "from a spearhead to an anchor" the unpredictable Scalia will probably continue to amuse, astonish, satisfy, and frighten many Court watchers.

In 1986 President Reagan promoted William H. Rehnquist to Chief Justice, following retirement of Warren Burger. Scalia was nominated to fill the empty chair. Ironically, Regnquist's nomination drew all focus away from the much more conservative Scalia, who passed the Senate unanimously, and virtually uncriticized.

Work Background

1986 Sep 26	Associate Justice, US Supreme Court, nominated by President Reagan, commissioned Sep 25 and sworn in Sep 26, 1986.
1982-1986	Judge, United States Court of Appeals for District of Columbia Circuit, appointed by Reagan.
1982-1983	Chairman, American Bar Association's Conference of Section Chairms
1981-1982	Chairman, American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law.
1977-1982	Professor of Law, University of Chicago. Visiting Professor of Law, Stanford University.
1977	Professor, Georgetown University Law Center, very brief time.
1977	Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute, conservative think-tank in D.C.
1974-1977	Assistant Attorney General, Office of Legal Counsel, Dept. of Justice; nominated by Nixon just before Watergate forced the President to resign. Ford assigned him the task of determining legal ownership of the Nixon tapes and documents. He ruled for Nixon but the Supreme Court unanimously disagreed.
1972-1974	Chairman, Administrative Conference of the United States, studied ways to improve efficiency of governmental processes.
1971-1972	General Counsel, White House Office of Telecommunications Policy, Nixon administration. Successfully formulated a policy of growth for cable television.
1967-1974	Professor of Law, University of Virginia.
1970	Admitted to Virginia Bar.
1961-1967	Law practice at Jones, Day, Cockley and Reavis in Cleveland, Ohio.
1962	Admitted to Ohio Bar.
1960-1961	Recipient, Sheldon Fellowship from Harvard University, which allowed him to travel in Europe for one year.
1960	LL.B., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School; Notes Editor of Harvard Law Review.
1957	Graduate studies, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, while attending Harvard University.
1957	A.B., summa cum laude and class valedictorian, history, from Georgetown University.

Memberships & Affiliations