As soon as I finished posting my article yesterday morning, I continued my search for writings on the Internet directly from Elena Kagan herself. Here are the results of my search:
Harvard Law Review 2001
Presidential Administration
http://www.harvardlawreview.org/media/pdf/vol114_kagan.pdf
The Daily Princetonian
Several articles written in 1980
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/section/elenakagan/
University of Chicago Law Review, 1995
Confirmation Messes, Old and New
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Confirmation-Messes.pdf
Catalog of Princeton University Senior Theses
However to order a copy of it will cost $54.60 (.35 cents a page) + 6.00 postage.
http://libweb5.princeton.edu/theses/index.htm
She wrote the foreward for “Transformations in American Legal History: Essays in Honor of Professor Morton J. Horwitz” by David Hamilton & Alfred Brophy.
I could not find an on-line copy to read, but here is the link for it at Amazon.com. Or you could see if the library or your local book store has it and read it right in the store.
http://www.amazon.com/Transformations-American-Legal-History-Professor/dp/0674033469
I also saved all the free articles to my hard drive just in case they mysteriously disappear somewhere. I’m still looking for a free copy of her thesis on-line. If someone finds one before me, please let me know. I’m not in a position to buy the last two items on the list. But I would really love to read them. It has been interesting to me that out of a 156 page thesis, all the papers and blogs have only been quoting two paragraphs. I’m sorry, but for me, that alone is not enough evidence to say she is a committed socialist, though I do believe she is a committed liberal.
I have not read all of these yet so if I learn anything interesting, I’ll let you know.
For other info on Ms. Kagan, click here
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Matt
I believe that future generations should have the same opportunities that myself, and those that came before me, had. My parents taught me that I could do anything I wanted to do. I don’t want to have to tell my daughter, “You can do whatever the government tells you to do.” We are at a crossroads in this country; are we going to be free, or are we going to be slaves to the nanny state. I choose freedom.
Here’s what I transcribed from the thesis pdf before Princeton made Red State and several other sources pull it down for “copyright infringement.”
“The story is a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America.”
….
Her thesis was dedicated to her brother “whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.”
….
The success of the socialists in establishing a viable — if minor — political party in the early twentieth century suggests that historians must examine not only external but also internal factors if they hope to explain the absence of socialism from contemporary American politics. The effects of the frontier, of class mobility, of an ethnically divided working class may explicate why the Socialist Party did not gain an immediate mass following; they cannot explain why the growing and confident American socialist movement of the Progressive Era suddenly fell apart. For that, we must turn to the internal workings and problems of the socialist movement itself.
….
In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future, of capitalism’s glories than of socialism’s greatness. Conformity overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation. Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in particular, did the socialist movement never become an alternative to the nation’s established parties?
….
The story is a a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America. Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one’s fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful foe. Yet if the history of the Local New York shows anything, it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.
Thanks for posting this Jackie. It’s bit more thorough than many sites.
Thanks to Snarky for posting some of the stuff.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/31359104/Elena-Kagan-s-College-Thesis#
Here is a link to a free download for her thesis…
You should get it while you can… Seems that Princeton has cleaned out the internet of all copies… Better get it while the gettin’ is good.
Here dedication is especially sweet… “I would like to thank my brother Marc,
whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my own political ideas.”
I guess now we know why the President didn’t want the NY Times near this guy…
Here is her thesis plus many other articles written by Elena at the Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/law/find/kagan.php