 The vast majority of white justices have been of Northern European and Northwestern European descent . Up to the 1980s , only six justices of " central , eastern , or southern European derivation " had been appointed , of which five " were of Germanic background , which includes Austrian , German @-@ Bohemian , and Swiss origins ( John Catron , Samuel F. Miller , Louis Brandeis , Felix Frankfurter , and Warren Burger ) , while one justice was of Iberian descent ( Benjamin N. Cardozo ) . " Justice Antonin Scalia ( appointed in 1986 ) and Justice Samuel Alito ( appointed in 2006 ) are the first justices of Italian descent to be appointed to the Supreme Court . Cardozo , appointed to the Court in 1932 , was the first Justice known to have non @-@ northern European ancestry . 
