Kagan Says She Would Have Defended Military Recruiter Law as SG

Solicitor General nominee Elena Kagan said at her confirmation hearing yesterday that she would have defended a law requiring universities receiving federal funding to accept military recruiters.

Kagan, the dean of Harvard Law School, had signed a Supreme Court amicus brief that opposed the law. She and other signers objected to the military's ban on openly gay service members. But she told Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., that she "absolutely would have" supported the law if she had been solicitor general at the time, the Daily Journal reports (sub. req.). "There is a clear obligation upon the solicitor general to defend a statute," she said.

Kagan said a solicitor general should defend all laws, unless there is no reasonable basis to do so or the law directly infringes on the president’s power, Legal Times reports. She also said the solicitor general has to defend executive actions, including the positions of federal agencies with which she disagrees.

Kagan’s hearings are attracting media attention because she is thought to be a potential Supreme Court nominee. She “enjoyed a mostly smooth ride” before the Senate Judiciary Committee, according to the Daily Journal account. Harvard law professor Charles Fried, a former solicitor general, told the Harvard Crimson that Kagan left the hearing feeling “very pleased.”