Obama Nominates Harvard Law Dean to S.G.

Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan has sent an email to alumni to announce that President-elect Barack Obama will nominate her to be Solicitor General. If confirmed by the Senate, she will take a leave of absence from Harvard.

I have accepted this nomination because it offers me the opportunity, working under the leadership of the President-elect and his nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder, to help advance this nation's commitment to the rule of law at what I think is a critical time in our history. I am honored and grateful, awestruck and excited, to be asked to contribute to this most important endeavor. And perhaps, for me, it adds a special touch of sweetness to the occasion that the person making the nomination, in whose capacity for greatness I deeply believe, is himself a member of the group to which I am writing.

At the same time, I feel today real sadness - a sense of loss of what, if confirmed, I will be leaving that is every bit as strong as my sense of anticipation of what will be to come. Now isn't the time for me to attempt a grand wrapping-up or final farewell; I don't in any way want to presume the outcome of the Senate's consideration. For the present, I'll say only this: it has been both the joy and the privilege of my life to serve as dean of this most wondrous law school. I love it, and I love the extraordinary community of people - you - who make it up. I look forward to staying in close touch.

Although I don't know Dean Kagan personally, she has made some outstanding appointments to the law school's faculty that demonstrate an interst in seeking opposing viewpoints. That is, she's appointed true conservatives (Federalist Society members!) who have done much to enhance the ideological diversity of the school.

She'll make a great S.G.