Encyclopedia · Private Biography Draft
Antonin Scalia
American Supreme Court justice (1936–2016)
Personal details
- Full name
- Antonin Gregory Scalia
- Born
- March 11, 1936 · Trenton, New Jersey
- Died
- February 13, 2016 · Shafter, Texas
- Parents
- S. Eugene (Salvatore Eugene) Scalia; Catherine Panaro Scalia
- Education
- Georgetown University, A.B. (1957); Harvard Law School, LL.B. (1960)
- Spouse
- Maureen McCarthy (married 1960)
- Children
- Nine: Ann, Eugene, John, Catherine, Mary, Paul, Matthew, Christopher and Margaret
- Religion
- Roman Catholic
- Judicial office
- Associate justice, U.S. Supreme Court (1986–2016)
Antonin Gregory Scalia (1936–2016) was an American jurist and associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1986 until his death. He was appointed by President Ronald Reagan and became a prominent advocate of textualism and constitutional originalism.
Early life and education
Scalia was the only child of Italian American educators Salvatore Eugene Scalia, a professor of Romance languages, and Catherine Panaro Scalia, a schoolteacher. Raised in Queens, New York, he graduated from St. Francis Xavier High School in Manhattan.
He graduated from Georgetown University in 1957, studied in Fribourg, Switzerland, and earned his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1960. He married Maureen McCarthy in 1960; they had nine children and raised their family in the Catholic faith.
Law practice and government
Scalia practiced law in Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1960s and taught at the University of Virginia. He was general counsel of the federal Office of Telecommunications Policy (1971–1972), chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1972–1974), and assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (1974–1977).
He later taught law at the University of Chicago and edited Regulation magazine. At Chicago, he helped organize a founding campus chapter of the Federalist Society in 1982.
Federal judiciary
Reagan appointed Scalia to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982 and nominated him to the Supreme Court in 1986. He served until 2016. His jurisprudence emphasized statutory text and the original public meaning of constitutional provisions, and he wrote numerous majority, concurring and dissenting opinions.
References
Research compiled through November 12, 2026. Sources and historical roles are dated where known.