Elena Kagan Warns Gorsuch: Supreme Court Newbie Has Chores To Do

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. Image by Getty Images
Neil Gorsuch is now the Supreme Court’s freshman, after his Monday swearing in as an associate justice on the high court. He’s replacing Elena Kagan, appointed by former President Obama, as the bench’s most junior member, and according to Kagan, that role will come with some unexpected tasks.
Speaking at an event in Colorado last fall, Kagan told a crowd that she had three responsibilities as the new kid in black. She had to attend monthly cafeteria committees, where she would help decide what the justices would eat when they shared meals when the court was hearing cases. Another was taking notes when the justices met to deliberate on cases. And the third was opening the door whenever someone knocked while the Supremes were in session.
She said the scut work had a way of humbling her. “You think you’re kind of hot stuff. You’re an important person. You’ve just been confirmed to the United States Supreme Court,” she said. “And now you are going to monthly cafeteria committee meetings where literally the agenda is what happened to the good recipe for the chocolate chip cookies.”
Gorsuch will replace the late Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, after a 14-month-long vacancy created after Republicans declined to consider Obama’s choice for the seat, Merrick Garland. Gorsuch, President Trump’s pick, was confirmed in the senate by a narrow party-line vote after the chamber’s Republicans changed the rules to end a Democratic filibuster.
Contact Daniel J. Solomon at [email protected] or on Twitter @DanielJSolomon
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 4
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
In Case You Missed It
-
Opinion A Palestinian leader just gave Trump an unprecedented opening to pursue peace
-
Fast Forward NIH bans grants for schools that boycott Israeli companies
-
Fast Forward An elite Jewish society at Yale fractures over its director’s embrace of Itamar Ben-Gvir
-
Fast Forward After outcry, Cornell president cancels pro-Palestinian performer chosen for campus concert
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.