Maureen Mahoney

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Maureen E. Mahoney

Maureen E. Mahoney (born in 1954) is an appellate lawyer at the law firm of Latham & Watkins LLP in Washington, DC who has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2003, she argued on behalf of the University of Michigan and its affirmative action program in Grutter v. Bollinger. Justice O'Connor's opinion agreed with the university's position, holding that using race in public universities' admissions decisions was permissible.

Mahoney served as Deputy Solicitor General in the George H. W. Bush administration, where she was a colleague of Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts. The first President Bush nominated her to serve as a federal District Court judge, but her nomination was not acted upon by the Senate. Mahoney earned her undergraduate degree in Political Science from Indiana University and her J.D. from the University of Chicago Law School.

Mahoney clerked for Justice William Rehnquist when he was an associate justice on the Supreme Court. She also clerked for Judge Robert Sprecher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Harriet Miers' withdrawal of her Supreme Court nomination made Mahoney a possible candidate for the Supreme Court. However, her position in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases has raised concerns among conservatives, and she ultimately was passed over in favor of Samuel Alito.