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ElenaKagan 23 - 25 Jun 2010 - Main.BrookSutton
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| | Is anyone else disappointed with this nomination (from a non liberal/conservative point of view)?
I think it is terribly disappointing that we keep getting these Ivy League judges on the Supreme Court. Sure, Kagan has no "bench" experience, so in that aspect she is diverse. She is also female, which may be needed. But, she is still what at least 7 out of the other 8 are on the court: legal intellectuals. Frankly, I would have liked to have seen (and would like to see in the future) non-intellectuals grace the halls of the court again. There used to be a time when one did not have to go to an Ivy league law school to be on the court. Now, it is a prerequisite. And, I can't think of a nominee that would be a bigger intellectual than Kagan: law prof turned Harvard Law School Dean. But, I don't know the woman, so, maybe I'm wrong. | | | I am concerned with this problem because in my opinion, there are some things that a pure “jurist” might not be able to do. For example, Earl Warren, the governor-turned Chief Justice, successfully mustered nine votes for Brown. Such a manoeuvring takes way more than the skill to apply legal rules. In the present Court, there are no such people. Aside from being liberal/ conservative, the Justices are not that different. When you have a bunch of equally intelligent people but no leader among them, hardly anything significant can be achieved. No wonder there was some opinion that Obama should nominate himself Justice.
-- WenweiLai - 25 Jun 2010 | |
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> | Dan, I'm glad you posted that editorial. It ties in with my thoughts on something Rory said earlier. He wrote:
If going to Yale or Harvard was a one-way ticket to the Supreme Court, I would have studied more for the LSAT.
Obviously a diploma from one of these two schools isn't sufficient for a seat on the Court, but is it necessary? Right now, despite all our qualifications and potential, it looks like Columbia grads are virtually shut out of the Court, along with alums of every other school in the country, simply by virtue of not being Harvard or Yale grads.
We aren't even talking about Ivy's now, just the two schools, so I don't think the issue is elitism, generally. I think the problem here, which Brooks is also addressing, involves the ramifications for society when opportunities follow only the narrow kinds of success that certain institutions recognize. You eliminate risk-takers disproportionately and thereby lose diversity and innovation. In the case of the Court, it may mean you're getting the best and the brightest, or it may mean you're simply getting the people who invested the most into proving they could do the one thing everyone accepted to a top law school can do-get a grade. Whatever the case, I think the near total domination of the Court by the Harvard and Yale brands alone represents a surrender to narrow and arbitrary institutional values. | | | |
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