Antonin Scalia

Antonin Scalia (1936-2016) was born in Trenton, New Jersey, to an Italian immigrant father and grew up in Queens. He graduated from Georgetown and Harvard Law School, practiced at Jones Day, taught at Virginia and Chicago, headed the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel under Gerald Ford and served on the D.C. Circuit. Ronald Reagan named him to the Supreme Court in 1986, and the Senate confirmed him 98-0, making him the first Italian-American justice. He served until his death in Texas in February 2016.

Admirers regard Scalia as the most influential conservative jurist of his era: he helped make originalism and textualism mainstream methods, and Justice Elena Kagan remarked that 'we are all textualists now'. He received a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom, and George Mason University renamed its law school for him. Critics argued that his originalism tended to produce conservative results on abortion, gay rights and affirmative action, and that his scathing dissents coarsened debate on the Court. Others note that his method sometimes led to outcomes he disliked, such as protecting flag burning, and his close friendship with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is often cited as an example of civility.