Justice Elena Kagan said Thursday that the Supreme Court, which has faced intense criticism over lavish, undisclosed free travel by some of her colleagues, is struggling to devise an ethics policy specific to its nine members despite continued discussion.

“It’s not a secret for me to say, we’ve been discussing this issue, and it won’t be a surprise to know that the nine of us have a variety of views about this — and about most things,” Kagan said, drawing laughter from hundreds of lawyers and judges attending a judicial conference here. “We’re nine freethinking individuals.”…

“It’s a hard thing to figure out exactly how we’re alike and how we’re different from other judges — and it’s hard to get as much consensus as we can in the way that we like to do,” Kagan said during a nearly hour-long conversation