Justice Kagan. Collection of the Supreme Court of the United States.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan will be the featured speaker at George Mason University’s second annual Roger Wilkins Lecture, named for the late Mason professor.
“A Conversation with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan” will take place at 4:30 p.m. Nov. 18, in the MIX at Fenwick Library on the Fairfax Campus.
The free event, open to students, faculty, staff, alumni and all members of the Mason community, is presented by Mason’s Philosophy, Politics and Economics Program. Elizabeth Wilkins, Roger Wilkins’s daughter and a former clerk for Justice Kagan, will introduce the Justice.
Kagan, the first woman to serve as U.S. solicitor general and also the first to serve as dean of Harvard Law School, is the fourth woman to serve on the Supreme Court, becoming the 112th justice on Aug. 7, 2010.
“Justice Kagan’s visit will offer Mason students a unique inside look on how American law is made by a justice known for the clarity of her legal reasoning, the passion of her dissents and her deft touch in bringing her colleagues together,” said Steven Pearlstein, Robinson Professor of Public Affairs, who will moderate the conversation.
This will mark Justice Kagan’s second Mason appearance in three years. In 2016, she spoke on behalf of the court at the dedication of the Antonin Scalia Law School. Six Supreme Court justices attended that event on the Arlington Campus.
The Roger Wilkins Lecture is named in honor of the late civil rights activist and first black assistant attorney general. Wilkins served under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and was a Robinson Professor of History and American Culture at Mason for almost 20 years.