Bork, Robert Heron (1927-2012), an American judge, was nominated in 1987 to serve as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. However, Bork became a controversial choice because of his conservative views. After a heated debate, the U.S. Senate rejected Bork’s nomination. United States President Ronald W. Reagan had picked Bork to fill the vacancy created by Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr.’s retirement.
Bork was born on March 1, 1927, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He received a bachelor’s degree in 1948 and a law degree in 1953, both from the University of Chicago. He practiced law from 1954 to 1962. He was a member of the Yale Law School faculty from 1962 to 1975 and from 1977 to 1981. Bork worked for the U.S. Department of Justice from 1973 to 1977 as solicitor general.
In October 1973, Bork became known as the official who followed President Richard M. Nixon’s order to fire Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate political scandal (see Watergate ). The attorney general and deputy attorney general had resigned after refusing to fire Cox. Nixon then appointed Bork—who as solicitor general was the third-ranking official in the U.S. Department of Justice—acting attorney general, and Bork fired Cox. Bork continued to serve as acting attorney general until January 1974.
At the time of his Supreme Court nomination, Bork was serving as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Reagan had appointed him to the position in 1982. Bork retired from this post in 1988.
From 1988 to 2003, Bork served as a scholar in legal studies at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, a nonprofit organization dedicated to education and research on economics, government, politics, and social welfare issues. He wrote a number of books, including The Antitrust Paradox: A Policy at War with Itself (1978), The Tempting of America: The Political Seduction of the Law (1990), and Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline (1996). Bork died on Dec. 19, 2012.
