Brett Michael Kavanaugh was born in Washington, D.C., in 1965, a product of the capital's legal establishment — Yale College and Law School, a clerkship with Justice Kennedy (§104), service in the George W. Bush White House, and a dozen years on the D.C. Circuit. Donald Trump nominated him in 2018 to succeed his old boss, Justice Kennedy.
Kavanaugh's confirmation became one of the most bitter in American history when Christine Blasey Ford testified that he had sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers. Kavanaugh categorically denied the allegation in angry testimony of his own; a supplemental FBI review reported no corroboration; and the Senate confirmed him 50–48, the closest vote for a justice in more than a century. The hearings remain fiercely disputed. On the bench he has settled into the role of a pivotal, institutionally cautious conservative — frequently the median vote on a nine-member Court whose center of gravity he helped shift, often aligning with Chief Justice Roberts (§109) in favor of narrower rulings. He continues to serve.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
2022Holding · (Concurring) The Constitution is 'neutral' on abortion; the decision does not permit barring interstate travel for the procedure and does not, in his view, threaten other precedents.
Role · Kavanaugh joined the majority overruling Roe and wrote separately to stress limits.
A window into the reassurance-seeking conservatism that makes Kavanaugh so often the pivotal vote.
Read the opinion →Ramos v. Louisiana
2020Holding · (Concurring) A criminal conviction requires a unanimous jury; a precedent should be overruled only after weighing how wrong it was, the reliance it created, and the consequences of keeping it.
Role · Kavanaugh concurred, setting out a framework for stare decisis.
His most substantial writing on when the Court should overrule precedent — a question at the heart of the modern Court.
Read the opinion →Flowers v. Mississippi
2019Holding · A prosecutor's repeated exclusion of Black jurors across six trials of the same defendant violated the Constitution.
Role · Kavanaugh wrote for the Court.
A notable early majority, applying the rule against racial discrimination in jury selection.
Read the opinion →Brett Kavanaugh reached the Supreme Court in 2018 through one of the most bitterly contested confirmations in American history, and has since settled into a role as a pivotal, institutionally cautious conservative — frequently the median vote on a nine-member Court whose center of gravity he helped shift. A product of the Washington legal establishment — Yale, a Kennedy (§104) clerkship, service in the George W. Bush White House, and a dozen years on the D.C. Circuit — he was nominated by Donald Trump to succeed Justice Kennedy. His confirmation erupted when Christine Blasey Ford testified that he had sexually assaulted her when both were teenagers; Kavanaugh categorically denied the allegation in angry testimony of his own, a further FBI review reported no corroboration, and the Senate confirmed him 50–48, the closest vote for a justice in more than a century. The hearings remain fiercely disputed and are the subject of opposing book-length accounts. On the bench he has often aligned with Chief Justice Roberts (§109) in seeking narrower paths, making him a frequent swing vote within the conservative majority. Begin with the dueling confirmation books, read fairly against each other, then his own opinions on precedent and the Court's role.
The Bookshelf
An investigative account of Kavanaugh's life and confirmation by two New York Times journalists, sympathetic to the questions raised about his conduct and candor. Drawing on interviews across his years at Georgetown Prep, Yale, and Washington, it examines the Blasey Ford allegation and others and the culture that shaped him. It is one side of a bitterly contested story and should be read alongside the opposing account below; together they frame a confirmation that the country has never stopped arguing about. Portfolio/Penguin. (Read critically, and in tandem with Hemingway and Severino.)
The conservative account of the 2018 confirmation battle — Ryan Lovelace's defense of Kavanaugh against the allegations, the counterpoint to the two investigative books already on the shelf. Regnery.
The conservative counter-narrative, by a journalist and a legal activist who defend Kavanaugh and portray the opposition to him as a coordinated campaign of character assassination. Sympathetic to the nominee and sharply critical of his accusers and the process, it marshals its own reporting to argue that the allegations were uncorroborated and the hearings a low point for the Senate. Read against The Education of Brett Kavanaugh, it lets the reader weigh two irreconcilable tellings of the same events and reach an informed judgment. Regnery. (One side of a contested story; read in tandem with Pogrebin and Kelly.)
Kavanaugh's separate concurrence in Dobbs, and a revealing statement of his self-understanding as a justice at the Court's center. Joining to overrule Roe, he wrote separately to insist that the Constitution is 'neutral' on abortion and to signal limits — that the decision did not permit punishing women who travel for abortions or bar Congress from acting, and did not, in his view, threaten other precedents. Critics doubted the reassurances; supporters read them as characteristic caution. Read it as a window into the incremental, reassurance-seeking conservatism that makes Kavanaugh so often the pivotal vote.
Kavanaugh's most substantial writing on stare decisis, appended to the decision requiring unanimous jury verdicts in state criminal trials. Concurring in the overruling of a prior case, he set out a framework for when precedent should yield — how grievously wrong a decision was, the reliance it has generated, and the real-world consequences of keeping or discarding it. Written to reconcile respect for precedent with a willingness to overrule, it is essential for understanding how he approaches the recurring question of what to do with rulings he thinks mistaken, a question at the heart of the modern Court. Read it as his theory of when the past gives way.
The most substantial scholarly treatment of Kavanaugh's jurisprudence to date — reading his Rahimi concurrence as a programmatic defense of originalism's legitimacy. On a shelf otherwise made entirely of confirmation-battle books, the one study of the judge rather than the nomination. Free full text.
The Reading Path
A researched route through the literature — in order.
- 1.Pogrebin and Kelly, The Education of Brett Kavanaugh — for one account of the contested confirmation
- 2.Hemingway and Severino, Justice on Trial — for the opposing account — read the two together
- 3.Dobbs concurrence — for the median justice's reassurance-seeking conservatism
- 4.Ramos v. Louisiana concurrence — for his theory of when precedent gives way
Where the Papers Are Kept
Kavanaugh continues to serve, and his judicial papers are not open to researchers. His extensive service in the George W. Bush White House generated records now held in that administration's archives — documents whose withholding was itself a flashpoint of his confirmation — and his dozen years on the D.C. Circuit are reflected in that court's opinions. His Supreme Court jurisprudence lives in the published reports. The Federal Judicial Center and Oyez provide the biographical and case record. Visit →
Ideas for Further Research
- The confirmation the country never settled. The 2018 hearings produced two irreconcilable narratives — corroborated wrongdoing and unfair character assassination — that still divide Americans and shape how they view the Court. Read the opposing book-length accounts against the public record and the testimony, and study the episode as a case in how contested facts, partisan process, and the stakes of a lifetime appointment interact, without assuming the conclusion either side urges.
- The new median. With Kennedy (§104) gone and the Court moved right, Kavanaugh often occupies the pivotal middle of the conservative majority, joining Roberts (§109) in favoring narrower rulings. Track the cases where his vote has set the outcome or the breadth of a decision, and ask what it means for American law that its swing vote is now well to the right of where O'Connor (§102) and Kennedy once stood.
- Precedent in a Court willing to overrule. Kavanaugh has written more than most about when stare decisis should yield, even as he joined to overrule Roe. Test his multi-factor framework against the decisions of his tenure, and ask whether it genuinely disciplines the choice to discard precedent or chiefly supplies a vocabulary for overruling cases a majority already disfavors. Seat lineage: Anthony Kennedy §104 → Brett Kavanaugh → (still serving).