Scalia, Antonin, 1936-, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1986-), b. Trenton, N.J. He graduated from Harvard Law School (1960) and subsequently taught law at the Univ. of Virginia (1967-71) and the Univ. of Chicago (1977-82). In 1982, President Reagan named him to the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and four years later he was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court, taking the seat vacated when William Rehnquist ascended to the position of chief justice. An outspoken conservative, Scalia is a prominent proponent of "textualism," the idea that one should focus on the text of the U.S. constitution or a law and its original meaning when seeking to interpret it, and that decisions of judges should be based on that original meaning, a position most concisely enunciated in A Matter of Interpretation (1997). He has been willing to overturn (often liberal) precedents, and with Rehnquist (until 2005) and Clarence Thomas (from 1991), formed the Court's right wing. Scalia has, however, sometimes taken more libertarian positions, protecting flag burning as a form of free speech, for example.

(born March 11, 1936, Trenton, N.J., U.S.) U.S. jurist. He studied at Georgetown University and Harvard Law School, where he edited its law review. Successively, he worked for a Cleveland law firm (1961–67), taught at the University of Virginia (1967–74), served as an assistant U.S. attorney general (1974–77), and taught at the University of Chicago (1977–82). He was appointed by Pres. Ronald Reagan to the U.S. Court of Appeals (1982) and then to the Supreme Court of the United States (1986). Among the court's most outspoken justices, he quickly earned a reputation for aggressive oral argument and scathingly critical written opinions, especially when expressing dissenting views. An opponent of “judicial activism,” he favoured a restrained judiciary, deference to the original intent of the framers in constitutional interpretation, and a limited role for the federal government.

Learn more about Scalia, Antonin with a free trial on Britannica.com.

See Antonin Scalia