Scalia, Antonin (1936-)

Early Years

Antonin Scalia was born on March 11, 1936, in Trenton, New Jersey, the sole child of S. Eugene and Catherine Scalia. His father came to the United States from Sicily and was a professor of Romance languages. His mother, who was also of Italian heritage, was a teacher. Justice Scalia was the first justice of Italian American heritage and is a purveyor of the American dream.

Scalia attended a military prep school, St. Francis Xavier, and Georgetown University, where he graduated first in his class in 1957. He went to Harvard Law School, serving as notes editor of the Harvard Law [Page 727]Review and graduating magna cum laude in 1960. While at Harvard, Scalia met and married Maureen McCarthy, an English major at Radcliffe College; they have nine children.

After graduating from law school, Scalia worked at a law firm and taught at the University of Virginia Law School. He began his career in government service as general counsel for the U.S. Office of Telecommunications Policy during the administration of President Nixon and served in President Ford's Department of Justice as assistant attorney general in charge of the Office of Legal Counsel. Additionally, he worked as a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute while also teaching at the Georgetown University Law Center and the University of Chicago Law School.

In 1982, President Reagan appointed Scalia to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Supreme Court Record

In his time on the Supreme Court, Scalia has been defined through his debates and opinions as a textual-ist, or one who begins with the legal text of the Constitution, and an originalist as one who seeks the original meaning of a text in his interpretations and understanding of the role of the Supreme Court. He has often argued that specific parts of statutes did not fit the intent of the federal Constitution. To this end, Scalia has a talent for putting complex arguments about fundamental principles in easy-to-understand terms. His opinions and concurrences, along with his often strident dissents, span topics including free speech, separation of powers, race, abortion, the death penalty, religious freedom, and gender equity.

Scalia has declared his “original meaning” or textual stance consistently, indicating that it is a judge's duty to apply the textual language of the Constitution or a statute when it is clear and to apply the appropriate legal precedents when it is not. Given this position, he believes that insofar as laws say what they mean and mean what they say, judges should focus on their texts. Moreover, Scalia has maintained that judges should determine whether a text provides support for the individual rights or governmental authority in question. If the text provides the support, then he would argue that a claim is valid. Conversely, Scalia is of the view that if a text does not support a claim, then it should be struck down as invalid.

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