three is a magic number.

okay, not magic, exactly.

but for the first time, the supreme court of the united states
has three women serving on it at the same time.

which means for the first time, there are an equal number of women
serving as supreme court justices as there were
singing in the girl group the supremes.

221 years after the court was established.
45 years after "stop! in the name of love" was released.

of course, none of the women justices are black － yet.
baby steps, gals. baby steps.

so i realize i'm a little late with my bloggy holla!
for new justice elena kagan.
but i was llunching with llamas, y'all.

so mea kulpa, justice kagan [i know you know your latin],
& congratulations on your new job!

some elena ephemera ... she:

is the u.s. supreme court's 112th justice.
is the court's 4th woman justice.

is the first appointee since 1972 to join the court
with no prior judicial experience.

is a new york city native.

is the middle of three children,
& the only daughter.

is the daughter of an elementary-school
teacher mom & an attorney dad.

has two public-school teacher brothers.

essentially forced her orthodox rabbi
to perform his synagogue's first ritual
bat mitzvah [because it was equally as important
as the commonly performed ritual bar mitzvah].

graduated summa cum laude with a b.a. in history
from princeton university, where she also served
as editorial chair of the daily princetonian.

received princeton's daniel m. sachs class of 1960
graduating scholarship, one of the university's
highest general awards.

earned her master of philosophy at oxford university.

graduated magna cum laude with her juris doctor
from harvard law school, where she also served
as supervisory editor of the harvard law review.

clerked for justice thurgood marshall,
who nicknamed her "shorty." [she's 5'3".]

worked as a professor at the
university of chicago law school,
an associate white house counsel
& policy adviser under president bill clinton,
a professor at harvard law school
& as its first female dean,
& as the first female u.s. solicitor general.

argued her first case before an appellate court
－ the u.s. supreme court － less than a year ago.

experienced some key professional moments
during the clinton administration's offensive against
the tobacco industry, as she worked to push
anti-smoking legislation through congress &
defend the fda's authority to regulate the industry.

was a teenage smoker.

is the same age as my big sister [50].

so ... who gets to be diana ross －
justice ginsburg? justice sotomayor?
or does kagan step in, step up &
take the cake?

[is it disrespectful to playfully equate these
amazing, brilliant, ultimately successful
women leaders to the best of motown?
if so, then mea kulpa ii, your honors ...
& i'll stop! in the name of feminism.] :)



image sources: yahoo! news, www.ne.se