On Friday, Judge Amy Coney Barrett was announced as President Trump's nominee to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Barrett, age 48, has seven children with her husband Jesse Barrett is a previous assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Indiana.
Amy Coney Barrett is also well educated, having graduated with a BA in English Literature Magna Cum Laude from Rhodes College in Memphis Tennessee. Additionally, she earned her JD, Summa Cum Laude, from Notre Dame similarly to her husband, and was awarded the school's highest achievement award, the Hoynes Prize.
Barret would continue to gain knowledge and experience in the Judicial world after Law School by working as a clerk for an appeals court judge and for Justice Antonin Scalia in the U.S. Supreme Court between 1997 and 1999. She went on to then work in private practice in Washington D.C. until 2002 when she returned to Notre Dame to teach constitutional law, statutory interpretation, and federal courts. Then, between 2010 and 2016, she served by appointment of the chief justice on the Advisory Committee for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure until she was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017 as a judge to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
As far as her judicial philosophy and beliefs, Barret is a proponent of what is known as originalism. Originalism, in the judicial world, is a method of interpreting the Constitution that seeks to determine the meaning of the text at the time it was adopted. Barrett also advocates for textualism in her judicial proceedings, "a method of statutory interpretation that relies on the plain text of a statute to determine its meaning."
Finally, Barrett is a known Roman Catholic and member of People of Praise, a "charismatic, ecumenical, and covenant community." As a devout Catholic and lover of God in the judicial community, she has gathered a few critics. California Senator Diana Feinstein feared that Barrett's beliefs could unjustly sway her opinion in case proceedings, stating that religion and law should be separate. Sen. Diana explained, "I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that's of concern."
However, Barrett was still appointed a federal judge, and in her 2016 commencement address to the graduating class of Notre Dame, she proudly stated, "Your legal career is but a means to an end. . . . That end is building the kingdom of God. No matter how exciting any career is, what is it really worth if you don't make it part of a bigger life project to know, love, and serve the God who made you?"
