Portal:Conservatism/Selected article/3

Antonin Gregory Scalia (1936-2016) was an American jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. As the longest-serving justice on the Court, Scalia was the Senior Associate Justice. Appointed to the Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1986, Scalia had been described as the intellectual anchor of the Court's conservative wing.

In his quarter-century on the Court, Scalia had staked out a conservative ideology in his opinions, advocating textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation. He was a strong defender of the powers of the executive branch, believing presidential power should be paramount in many areas. He opposed affirmative action and other policies that treat minorities as groups. He filed separate opinions in large numbers of cases, and, in his minority opinions, often castigated the Court's majority in scathing language.