Who is Amy Coney Barrett?

Amy Coney Barrett, a former American lawyer, was confirmed as a Supreme Court Justice by the Senate and was sworn in by Chief Justice John Roberts. Taking the spot of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she became the 115th justice on the Supreme Court.

Barrett was Donald Trump’s nominee to replace Ginsburg. This was very controversial because many people thought it was only right to wait until after the election to fill Ginsburg’s spot in the court. She was confirmed in a four-day hearing with a vote of 52-48.

Barrett brings some new and unique perspectives to the court as the 5th woman to ever be a Supreme Court Justice. According to Whitehouse.gov, Barrett is the first mother of school-aged children as a Supreme Court Justice. She is also the only current member that did not obtain her law degree from either Harvard or Yale; she received it at Notre Dame Law School. In between 2002 and 2017, she was even a professor at Notre Dame Law School.

Many people are wondering if Barrett’s faith will affect her judgement though.

“I don’t think she was one to let her own political ideology or Catholicism tint change the way she approached the law,” Krista Cox, a former student of Barret said in an interview with the Indianapolis Star. “My interactions with her in the classroom are just that she was a brilliant legal mind, but she didn’t try to persuade someone to the correct political way to view this.” 

Barrett will also be one of the least experienced judges on the court, according to Mother Jones, a reader-supported investigative news organization, she “has never tried a case to verdict or argued an appeal in any court.”

Upcoming cases though will quickly show who Amy Coney Barrett is on things such as immigration and mail-in voting.