Papers Hint at High Court Nominee's Policy Thinking

When she served as a domestic-policy adviser to President Bill Clinton, U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan sometimes weighed in on education issues.

—Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images

By Mark Walsh

U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was immersed in a broad array of K-12 education policy initiatives during her two years as a White House aide to President Bill Clinton, papers released this month show.

Though the first batch of Ms. Kagan’s papers released by the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Ark., reveals little of the nominee’s own views on such issues as education funding, testing, social promotion, and school violence, her handwritten notations on policy memos by other aides give glimpses of her thinking on a few issues.

The papers consist mostly of physical files Ms. Kagan kept of memos, e-mails, and background documents sent to her when she served as deputy director of the White House Domestic Policy Council from 1997 to 1999. Other documents, including her own e-mails and memos, are expected to be released before the Senate Judiciary Committee later this month takes up her nomination to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens...