Amy Coney Barrett
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Amy Vivian Coney Barrett (born January 28, 1972) is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2020 as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The fifth woman to serve on the court, she was nominated by President Donald Trump. She was a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 2017 to 2020. Barrett graduated from Rhodes College before attending Notre Dame Law School, earning a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree in 1997 and ranked first in her class. She then clerked for Judge Laurence Silberman and Justice Antonin Scalia. In 2002, Barrett joined the faculty at Notre Dame Law School, becoming a professor in 2010. While a circuit judge, she continued to teach civil procedure, constitutional law, and statutory interpretation. On September 26, 2020, shortly after U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, Trump nominated Barrett to succeed her. Her nomination was controversial because the 2020 presidential election was only 38 days away and Senate Republicans had refused to hold hearings for Merrick Garland during an election year in 2016. The next month, the U.S. Senate voted 52–48 to confirm her nomination, with all Democrats and one Republican in opposition. Described as a protégée of Justice Antonin Scalia, Barrett supports textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation. While generally considered to be among the Court's conservative bloc, Barrett has demonstrated a growing pattern of independence and moderation as a swing vote in some controversial cases.