As many journalists and political pundits have pointed out, if Elena Kagan is in fact confirmed as the 112th Supreme Court Justice, it would secure a complete Harvard-Yale Law dominance of the Supreme Bench. Here’s a quick rundown of the current academic pedigrees of the other eight Supreme Court Justices:
Samuel Alito
Undergraduate: Princeton Law School: Yale
Stephen Breyer
Undergraduate: Stanford Law School: Harvard
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Undergraduate: Cornell Law School: Harvard, Columbia
Anthony Kennedy
Undergraduate: Stanford Law School: Harvard
John Roberts
Undergraduate: Harvard Law School: Harvard
Antonin Scalia
Undergraduate: Georgetown Law School: Harvard
Sonia Sotomayor
Undergraduate: Princeton Law School: Yale
Clarence Thomas
Undergraduate: Holy Cross Law School: Yale
You can clearly see that the breakdown is highly skewed in the Ivy direction, with Harvard/Yale achieving almost complete dominance in the Law School category (since Ginsburg technically transferred and completed her degree at Columbia). Only Clarence Thomas completed his undergraduate degree at what might not be considered an “elitist” institution. Kagan went to Princeton for undergrad and then attended Harvard Law. Her confirmation would only continue to solidify the Ivy/Harvard+Yale dominance.
Some have started to get up in arms that this is just the most recent example of American institutional elitism. David Bernstein from VC writes: “I know that Harvard and Yale attract a disproportionate percentage of America’s talented youth, but still, isn’t this a bit much? Are there no similarly talented individuals who attended other Ivy League schools, other private universities or (gasp!) even state law schools?”
But his is one of the more moderate complaints. The Washington Post has a more extensive criticism of the Ivy drapings of the Court. The article, titled, “The justice league: Elena Kagan’s nomination shows that Ivy roots run deep,” argues while it is hard to argue with Ivy League degrees, the Supreme Court is missing something if it only selects from the Ivy pool:
But are these super-pedigreed candidates missing something?
“Harvard and Yale are, by any standard, great educational institutions, but it is not one of their strengths to instill in their students a sense of humility,” says Jerome Karabel, a sociology professor and author of “The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.” “And if humility is a desirable quality in justices, then Harvard and Yale should not be the only pathway to the Supreme Court. Some of our greatest justices — Earl Warren, Thurgood Marshall, Robert Jackson and Hugo Black come to mind — did not attend Harvard or Yale.”
Say what you will about lacking a “sense of humility,” but I think it’s hard to construct an argument about institutional elitism as far as it relates to having educational opportunities in America. Maybe it is the case that a disproportionate number of Justices come from the Ivy League- even at the expense of superb candidates from state schools- but does this mean there is overarching institutional elitism? I say no. In order to prove this, one would have to show that there is discrimination at the level of undergraduate and law schools admissions. I won’t argue that this isn’t at all the case- but the Supreme Court isn’t the place to look for evidence. A number of the Justices came from poor backgrounds and are great American success stories.
So if you, Cornellian, are an aspiring Supreme Court Justice, your best bet would be to start studying for the LSATs early and apply to Harvard/Yale. Your chances look good!
Hmmm… Our last 4 presidents have also attended ivy leagues. It’s possible that ivy leagues just have better networking than other schools.
I have to agree with Hannah and disagree with Dennis. This is clearly an example of institutional classism. While we officially give low income students access to educational opportunities, the fact remains that the vast majority of students at top educational institutions are from wealthy families. The reasons for this likely have to do with the stronger connections that wealthier families have as well as the greater ability of these families to provide resources needed to cultivate a young person’s mind.
So to have this as the situation, and then have a society where most prestigious posts are filled simply by looking at one’s post-secondary background is inherently classist and really goes against the idea of a meritocracy that America is supposed to be (I don’t mean to sound like Glenn Beck, who constantly says that we’re supposed to be a meritocracy–these are my thoughts). If my arguments haven’t persuaded you, then consider that having everything based on educational background makes us like Europe (half joke, but not really).
You can certainly make that case Bouris, but my argument is that you shouldn’t look to the Supreme Court for evidence of institutional classism. Sotomayor came from a poor background (her father died when she was nine and she was raised by her mother in a poor NY neighborhood). Clarence Thomas grew up farming, and his father also left the family at an early age. Both of Alito’s parents were schoolteachers. Roberts’ father was a steel plant manager. Kennedy is probably the only one who came from a wealthy, distinguished family (although he’s not a real Kennedy). See my point?
Being a graduate from an Ivy League school is not a negative. The negative is that the Supreme Court is losing Educational Diversity amongst its members. A very simple example could be vanilla ice cream. Everyone likes vanilla ice cream. The problem arises when you limit your diet exclusively to vanilla ice cream. You get lots of calcium, but you lose out on all of the other needed vitamins and minerals to live a healthy productive life. The same can be said about losing the diversity of knowledge and diverse perspectives that people from other institutions can provide. The majority of the Supreme Court Judges should not be Ivy League graduates.
I am of the opinion that the Supreme Court is setting itself up for a legal challenge, as to whether or not 1) their opinions are in fact biased due to their common Ivy League education, and 2) they are engaging in discrimination, by limiting the Court to Ivy League Graduates.
The following applies to Kagan, just as it did to Sotomajor.
This editorial was created by 160 Associated Press readers under a Creative Commons Share-Alike Attribution License 3.0 using MixedInk’s collaborative writing tool. For more about how it was created, see here. It can be republished only if accompanied by this note.
Obamas Appointment of Sotomayor Fails to Offer Educational Diversity to Court.
Sotomayor does not offer true diversity to our Supreme Court. The potential power of Sotomayor’s diversity as a Latina Woman, from a disadvantaged background, loses its strength because her Yale Law degree does not offer educational diversity to the current mix of sitting Judges. Once she walked through the Gates of Princeton and then Yale Law School she became educated by the same Professors that have educated the majority of our current Supreme Court Justices, and our Presidents.
Diversity in education is extremely important. We need to look for diversity in our ideas, and if our leaders are from the same educational background, they lose the original power of their ethnic and gender diversity. The ethnic and gender diversity many of our current leaders possess no longer brings a plethora of new ideas, only the same perspective they learned from their common Ivy League education. One example of the common education problem is that Yale has been heavily influenced by a former lecturer at Yale, Judge Frank, who developed the philosophy of Legal Realism. Frank argued that Judges should not only look at the original intent of the Constitution, but they should also bring in outside influences, including their own experiences in order to determine the law. This negative interpretation has influenced both Conservatives and Liberals graduating from Yale. It has been said that Legal Realism has infested Yale Law School and turned lawyers into political activists.
A generation of appointees with either a Harvard or Yale background, has the potential to distort the proper interpretation of our Constitution. America needs to decentralize the power structure away from the Ivy League educated individual and gain from the knowledgeable and diverse perspectives that people from other institutions can provide. We should appoint Supreme Court Justices educated from amongst a wider group of Americas Universities.
Harvard –
Chief Justice John Roberts
Anthony Kennedy
Antonin Scalia
Stephen Breyer
Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Harvard, Columbia)
Yale
Samuel Alito – Yale JD 1975
David Souter
Clarence Thomas – Yale JD 1974
Sonia Sotomayor – Yale JD 1979
Northwestern Law School.
Justice John Paul Stevens
The Presidents we have elected for the last twenty years, have themselves been Harvard or Yale educated. This has the potential to create an even more closed minded interpretation of our laws.
Yale – Bush Sr. – 4 years
Yale Law – Clinton – 8 years
Yale – Bush, Jr. – 8 Years
Harvard Law – Obama – 4 – 8 years
When we consider that our Nation has potentially twenty – eight years of Presidential influence from these two Universities, as Americans, we should look long and hard at the influence Yale and Harvard have exerted on our nation’s policies. Barack Obama promised America Change, but he has continued the same discriminatory policy by appointing a Yale graduate over many qualified candidates that graduated from other top Colleges and Universities in America.