President Donald Trump officially nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday afternoon to replace former Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who passed away last week.
“Today it is my honor to nominate one of our nation’s most brilliant and gifted legal minds to the Supreme Court,” Trump said. “She is a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials, and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution.”
Barrett, 48, is a mother of seven, including two black children who she and her husband adopted from Haiti. Trump noted that, if confirmed, Barrett will be the first mother with school-age children to be on the Supreme Court.
Barrett is considered by many to be a rock solid choice who will not disappoint those who want an originalist on the nation’s highest court.
If confirmed, Barrett will replace Ginsburg, who died last week at 87 years old after losing the fight in her fifth bout with cancer.
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The University of Notre Dame Law School offered the following professional biography on Amy Coney Barrett:
The Honorable Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in October 2017. She is a Notre Dame Law School alumna and has taught as a member of the Law School’s faculty since 2002.
Judge Barrett teaches and researches in the areas of federal courts, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation. Her scholarship in these fields has been published in leading journals, including the Columbia, Virginia, and Texas Law Reviews. From 2010-2016, she served by appointment of the Chief Justice on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure. She has been selected as “Distinguished Professor of the Year” by three of the Law School’s graduating classes.
Judge Barrett earned her B.A. in English literature, magna cum laude, from Rhodes College, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and, among other honors, was chosen by the faculty as the most outstanding graduate in the college’s English department. She earned her J.D., summa cum laude, from Notre Dame, where she was a Kiley Fellow, earned the Hoynes Prize, the Law School’s highest honor, as the number one student in her class, and served as executive editor of the Notre Dame Law Review.
Before joining the Notre Dame faculty, Judge Barrett clerked for Judge Laurence H. Silberman of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and for Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court. As an associate at Miller, Cassidy, Larroca & Lewin in Washington, D.C., she litigated constitutional, criminal, and commercial cases in both trial and appellate courts. Judge Barrett has served as a visiting associate professor and John M. Olin Fellow in Law at the George Washington University Law School, as a visiting associate professor of law at the University of Virginia and is a member of the American Law Institute (ALI).
This report has been updated to include additional information.