# Anthony Kennedy *Associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 1988–2018* Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an American lawyer and jurist who sat on the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] as an associate justice from 1988 until he retired in 2018.[^1] President Ronald Reagan nominated him in November 1987 to the seat vacated by [[Lewis F. Powell Jr.]]. The [[United States Senate]] confirmed him without a dissenting vote in February 1988, and he took the oath on February 18, 1988.[^1] He had previously served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, to which President Gerald Ford appointed him in 1975. He left the Court during Donald Trump's first term, and his former law clerk [[Brett Kavanaugh]] took his seat.[^1] After [[Sandra Day O'Connor]] retired in 2006, Kennedy was seen as the deciding vote in many of the Roberts Court's 5–4 rulings.[^1] He wrote the opinion of the Court in *Boumediene v. Bush*, *Citizens United v. FEC*, and four gay-rights decisions: *Romer v. Evans*, *Lawrence v. Texas*, *United States v. Windsor*, and *Obergefell v. Hodges*. With O'Connor and [[David Souter]], he was a joint author of the controlling opinion in *Planned Parenthood v. Casey*.[^1] Three of his votes appear in the record of [[Minnesota]]. In *Hodgson v. Minnesota* (1990), he voted to uphold a requirement that both parents be notified before a minor's abortion.[^2] He wrote for the 6–3 majority in *Lawrence v. Texas* (June 26, 2003), which the project's time table pairs with Minnesota's 2001 decriminalization of sodomy.[^3] He also wrote for the 5–4 majority in *Obergefell v. Hodges* (June 26, 2015), which came after same-sex marriage had been legal in Minnesota since August 2013.[^4] ## Early life and education Kennedy grew up in Sacramento, California, in a Catholic household.[^5] His father, Anthony J. Kennedy (1902–1963), was an attorney known for his influence in the California State Legislature. His mother, Gladys (née McLeod; 1904–1981), was active in local civic life.[^5] As a boy, he met political figures including California governor [[Earl Warren]], who later became Chief Justice of the United States. As a young man, he worked as a page in the California State Senate. He finished at C. K. McClatchy High School in 1954 as an honors student.[^5] At Stanford University, where his mother had also studied, he became interested in constitutional law. He spent his final undergraduate year at the London School of Economics and received a B.A. in political science, Phi Beta Kappa, from Stanford in 1958.[^5] He earned a Bachelor of Laws, cum laude, at Harvard Law School in 1961.[^5] ## Legal career From 1961 to 1963, Kennedy practiced privately in San Francisco. When his father died in 1963, he took over the family's Sacramento practice and ran it until 1975.[^6] He taught constitutional law at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law from 1965 to 1988. While practicing and teaching in California, he assisted Governor Ronald Reagan in drafting a state tax proposal.[^6] From 1961 to 1962, he was a private first class in the California Army National Guard. He sat on the board of the Federal Judicial Center in 1987–88.[^6] On the Judicial Conference of the United States, he served on the Advisory Panel on Financial Disclosure Reports and Judicial Activities from 1979 to 1987. He was also a member of the Committee on Pacific Territories from 1979 to 1990 and its chair from 1982.[^6] ## U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit On Reagan's recommendation, Ford nominated Kennedy on March 3, 1975, to the Ninth Circuit seat left vacant by Charles Merton Merrill.[^7] The Senate confirmed him unanimously on March 20, and his commission issued on March 24, 1975.[^7] ## Supreme Court of the United States ### Nomination and confirmation Reagan first nominated Robert Bork for the Powell vacancy in July 1987, and the Senate rejected Bork 42–58 on October 23.[^8] Reagan's second choice, Douglas Ginsburg, withdrew on November 7 after acknowledging marijuana use. Senate Judiciary Committee member Patrick Leahy then warned that Senate Democrats would hold no hearings for any candidate until after the 1988 presidential election if the next nominee was unacceptable to them.[^8] Reagan named Kennedy on November 11, 1987. The background investigation that followed was more thorough than any before it, and it found nothing that would block the nomination.[^8] In a Ninth Circuit dissent objecting to police bribing a child to reveal where the child's mother hid drugs, Kennedy had written that "indifference to personal liberty is but the precursor of the state's hostility to it."[^8] At his confirmation hearing, Jeffrey Levi, executive director of the National Gay & Lesbian Taskforce, read aloud a passage on judicial restraint from an article Kennedy had published the year before.[^8] When [[Antonin Scalia]] died in February 2016, Kennedy became the Court's senior associate justice. Since O'Connor's death in 2023, he has been the oldest living former justice.[^1] ### Jurisprudence In *Hodgson v. Minnesota*, 497 U.S. 417 (1990), Kennedy voted to sustain a restriction requiring that both parents be notified of a minor's abortion.[^2] In 1992, he was a joint author of the *Casey* plurality, which reaffirmed *Roe v. Wade* in principle under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Before that, he had said as early as 1989 that he might not vote to overrule *Roe* in order to uphold precedent.[^2] In later cases he read *Casey* as permitting certain restrictions. He dissented in *Stenberg v. Carhart* (2000), which struck down laws criminalizing partial-birth abortion. After President George W. Bush's appointments, he again became the needed fifth vote in abortion cases.[^2] *Lawrence v. Texas*, 539 U.S. 558, was decided 6–3 on June 26, 2003, with Kennedy writing for the majority, and struck down sodomy laws.[^3] *Obergefell v. Hodges*, 576 U.S. 644, was decided 5–4 on June 26, 2015, again with a Kennedy majority, and established a nationwide right to same-sex marriage.[^4] ## Public speaking and teaching In a speech before the American Bar Association, Kennedy called for reform of overcrowded American prisons.[^9] He has spent summers teaching international and American law at the University of Salzburg in Austria for McGeorge's international program. While there, he has attended the city's annual international judges' conference.[^9] In 1994, he presided over a series of mock trials of Shakespeare's Hamlet for the killing of Polonius, and the juries usually deadlocked. He received the American Academy of Achievement's Golden Plate Award in 2005. In January 2015, he recorded a short interview for Historic [[Mount Vernon]] on George Washington's role in drafting and early interpretation of the Constitution.[^9] ## Personal life Kennedy married Mary Jeanne Davis, also of Sacramento, on June 23, 1963. She taught third grade at Golden Empire Elementary School in Sacramento.[^10] The couple have three children, all Stanford graduates, as is Mary Kennedy. Kennedy is one of 15 Catholics among the 116 justices who have served on the Court. In 2025, he published a memoir, *Life, Law & Liberty*.[^10] ## In the Minnesota record ### What - *Hodgson v. Minnesota*, 497 U.S. 417 (1990): Kennedy voted to uphold the two-parent notification requirement for minors.[^2] - *Lawrence v. Texas*, 539 U.S. 558 (2003): decided 6–3, Kennedy writing for the majority. The project's time table pairs it with Minnesota's 2001 decriminalization.[^3] - *Obergefell v. Hodges*, 576 U.S. 644 (2015): decided 5–4, Kennedy writing for the majority. Same-sex marriage had been legal in Minnesota since August 2013.[^4] No document in the pack ties any opinion of Kennedy's to the United States' pending action against the State. On January 14, 2026, the Office of Public Affairs of the [[United States Department of Justice]] issued release No. 26-21. Its title refers to the State's [[Affirmative action]] apparatus as "Minnesota's 'Affirmative Action' Regime," and it states that Attorney General Pamela Bondi certified the case as a matter of general public importance.[^11] The complaint in [[United States v. State of Minnesota (0:26-cv-00273)]] was filed in the District of Minnesota on January 14, 2026, under [[Title VII]] of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]]. It rests on [[Minn. Stat. § 43A.191]], which it cites eight times. Among those citations is subdivision 3(c)'s requirement that an agency explain the reason for hiring a non-affirmative candidate.[^12] The action is pending, and the record carries no ruling on its merits. The United States uses "regime" for governments it opposes. The [[Iraq Liberation Act]] of 1998 (Pub. L. 105-338), for example, states a policy of supporting efforts to remove "the regime headed by Saddam Hussein."[^13] The project's catalogue of U.S.-government "regime" usages ([[How Minnesota Got Here]], note 40) finds Minnesota the only U.S. state so described.[^13] In [[Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services]], 605 U.S. 303 (2025), decided seven years after Kennedy retired, the Supreme Court held that Title VII's disparate-treatment provision "draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs." The Court also rejected the Sixth Circuit's heightened "background circumstances" rule for majority-group plaintiffs.[^14] ### When - 1990: *Hodgson v. Minnesota* decided.[^2] - June 26, 2003: *Lawrence v. Texas* decided.[^3] - June 26, 2015: *Obergefell v. Hodges* decided.[^4] ### Where - The project's time table lists Minnesota as the place connected to *Lawrence* and to *Obergefell*.[^3][^4] ## Notes [^1]: Wikipedia contributors, *Anthony Kennedy* (rev. 1381032053, retrieved 2026-10-26), lead — tenure, nominations, confirmation, swing-vote role, majority opinions, seniority, succession. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy [^2]: Wikipedia contributors, *Anthony Kennedy* (rev. 1381032053, retrieved 2026-10-26), "Jurisprudence: Abortion" — *Hodgson v. Minnesota*, *Casey*, *Stenberg* dissent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy [^3]: U.S. Supreme Court, *Lawrence v. Texas*, 539 U.S. 558 (June 26, 2003) — 6–3 decision, Kennedy majority; time-table row TL-0725 pairs it with Minnesota's 2001 decriminalization. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/539/558/ [^4]: U.S. Supreme Court, *Obergefell v. Hodges*, 576 U.S. 644 (June 26, 2015) — 5–4 decision, Kennedy majority; time-table row TL-0832 notes Minnesota legal since Aug. 2013. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/576/644/ [^5]: Wikipedia contributors, *Anthony Kennedy* (rev. 1381032053, retrieved 2026-10-26), "Early life and education" — family, schooling, degrees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy [^6]: Wikipedia contributors, *Anthony Kennedy* (rev. 1381032053, retrieved 2026-10-26), "Legal career" — practice, teaching, Guard service, Judicial Conference committees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy [^7]: Wikipedia contributors, *Anthony Kennedy* (rev. 1381032053, retrieved 2026-10-26), "U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit" — nomination, confirmation and commission dates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy [^8]: Wikipedia contributors, *Anthony Kennedy* (rev. 1381032053, retrieved 2026-10-26), "Nomination and confirmation" — Bork vote, Ginsburg withdrawal, Leahy statement, Nov. 11, 1987 nomination, Ninth Circuit dissent quotation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy [^9]: Wikipedia contributors, *Anthony Kennedy* (rev. 1381032053, retrieved 2026-10-26), "Public speaking and teaching" — ABA speech, Salzburg, mock trials, award, Mount Vernon interview. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy [^10]: Wikipedia contributors, *Anthony Kennedy* (rev. 1381032053, retrieved 2026-10-26), "Personal life" — marriage, children, Catholic justices count, memoir. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Kennedy [^11]: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs, *United States Department of Justice Files Lawsuit Against Minnesota's 'Affirmative Action' Regime*, release No. 26-21 (Jan. 14, 2026) — title; Attorney General's certification of general public importance. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/united-states-department-justice-files-lawsuit-against-minnesotas-affirmative-action-regime [^12]: U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, *Complaint, United States v. State of Minnesota*, No. 0:26-cv-00273 (D. Minn. filed Jan. 14, 2026) — Title VII basis; eight citations of Minn. Stat. § 43A.191, including subd. 3(c). https://www.justice.gov/crt/media/1423361/dl [^13]: U.S. Congress, *Iraq Liberation Act of 1998*, Pub. L. 105-338 — "regime" usage; with the project's catalogue finding (How Minnesota Got Here, note 40) per pinned claim PIN-03. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/PLAW-105publ338/pdf/PLAW-105publ338.pdf [^14]: Supreme Court of the United States, *Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services*, 605 U.S. 303 (2025) — holding on majority-group plaintiffs under Title VII. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-1039_c0n2.pdf