Who is John Glover Roberts Jr.?
A: John Glover Roberts Jr. is an American lawyer and jurist serving as the
17th chief justice of the United States since 2005.
When was Roberts born?
A: John Glover Roberts Jr. was born on January 27, 1955.
Where was he born?
A: In Buffalo, New York.
Who were his parents?
A: Rosemary and John Glover "Jack" Roberts Sr.
His father had what ancestry?
A: Irish and Welsh ancestry.
His mother was a descendant of what?
A: Slovak immigrants from Szepes, Hungary.
He has an elder sister, Kathy, and two younger sisters,
named what?
A: Peggy and Barbara.
Where did Roberts spend his early childhood years?
A: In Hamburg, New York, where his father worked as an electrical engineer
for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation.
In 1965, ten-year-old Roberts and his family moved to
where?
A: To Long Beach, Indiana, where his father became manager of a what?
A: A new steel plant in nearby Burns Harbor.
Roberts attended La Lumiere School, a small but
affluent and academically rigorous Catholic what?
A: Boarding school in La Porte, Indiana.
Where did Roberts then study history?
A: At Harvard University, entering with sophomore standing based on his high
achievement in high school.
One of his first papers, "Marxism and Bolshevism:
Theory and Practice", won Harvard's what?
A: William Scott Ferguson Prize for most outstanding essay by a sophomore
history major.
In his senior year, his paper "The Utopian
Conservative: A Study of Continuity and Change in the Thought of Daniel
Webster" won what?
A: A Bowdoin Prize.
Each summer he returned home to earn money working
where?
A: At the steel plant his father managed.
He graduated in 1976 with an A.B. summa-cum-laude and
was elected to what?
A: Phi Beta Kappa.
Roberts had originally planned to pursue what?
A: A Ph.D. in history but decided to attend Harvard Law School instead.
He became managing editor of the Harvard Law Review and
graduated in 1979 with what?
A: J.D. magna cum laude.
After law school, Roberts clerked for whom?
A: Judge Henry Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
from 1979 to 1980.
What judge did he clerk for from 1980 to 1981?
A: William Rehnquist of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Following his clerkships, Roberts began working for
whom?
A: The U.S. government in the administration of President Ronald Reagan as a
special assistant to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith.
Then from 1982 to 1986 as an associate with what?
A: The White House Counsel.
He then entered private practice in Washington, D.C.,
as an associate at what law firm?
A: Hogan & Hartson (now Hogan Lovells) and worked in the field of corporate
law.
In October 1989, Roberts joined the administration of
President George H. W. Bush as what?
A: Principal Deputy Solicitor General.
He served as the acting solicitor general for the case
of Metro Broadcasting, Inc. v. FCC when the solicitor general, Ken Starr,
had what?
A: A conflict of interest.
In the case, Roberts argued against policies of the FCC
intended to increase what?
A: Minority ownership of broadcast licenses, arguing that the racial
preferences were unconstitutional.
Following Bush's defeat by Bill Clinton in the 1992
presidential election, Roberts left government service and returned to
where?
A: Hogan & Hartson as a partner.
He became the head of the firm's appellate practice,
and also became an adjunct professor where?
A: Georgetown University Law Center.
During this time, Roberts argued how many cases before
the Supreme Court?
A: 39, prevailing in 25 of them.
On July 19, 2005, President Bush nominated Roberts to
the U.S. Supreme Court to fill a vacancy to be created by the retirement of
whom?
A: Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female on the Supreme Court.
It was the first Supreme Court nomination since whose?
A: Stephen Breyer in 1994.
While Roberts's confirmation was pending before the
Senate, who died?
A: Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist on September 3, 2005.
Two days later, Bush withdrew Roberts's nomination as
O'Connor's successor and announced what?
A: Roberts's new nomination as chief justice.