Ivy League Domination of Supreme Court Continues Next Week
It’s not surprising that 70 percent of Supreme Court Justices seated since 1950 attended some Ivy League institution—Harvard and Yale have the best law schools in the country. When George W. Bush had to make up for the embarrassment that was Harriet Miers, he went with Samuel Alito, a graduate of Princeton and a Yale Law alumnus. President Obama continued the trend by nominating Sonia Sotomayor last May, betting she would have an easy time getting confirmed with alma maters identical to Alito’s. Except for the fact that Alito was a conservative student who hated the liberal Princeton administration and Sotomayor was a liberal student who hated the conservative Princeton administration.
The hearings start next Monday and with endorsements from the ABA, the Fraternal Order of Police, and former FBI director Louis Freeh, Sotomayor is likely to be confirmed as the first Hispanic Justice and the 1,000,000th Ivy League graduate on the Court. This is despite drawing fire for supposedly claiming a “wise Latina” would make better decisions than a white man. Analysis of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s sympathy for Princeton grads after the jump.
The Senate Judiciary Committee conducting the hearings will probably be a cakewalk for Sotomayor. With crazy Joe Biden being Vice President he can no longer hate on Princeton like he did during the Alito hearings:
‘I didn’t even like Princeton,’ Biden told Alito Tuesday. ‘I mean, I really didn’t like Princeton. I was an Irish Catholic kid who thought it had not changed like you concluded it had.’
Even better than having crazy Joe Biden off the Senate Judiciary Committee is having crazy Al Franken on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Franken probably has fond feelings for Princeton Trustee Sotomayor because his son Joe got to attend the university despite the Senator’s alleged hijinks. Sure, Sotomayor might face some tough questioning from Republicans, but it doesn’t really matter. The Democrats have a super-majority thanks to Franken and a few defections. They could get anybody confirmed at this point if they wanted. If only Jackie Chiles were real…
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Read more: barack obama, politics, Princeton, sonia sotomayor, this is why people hate the ivy league, Yale
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July 8th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
The Supreme Court today narrowly ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who said they were denied promotions because of their race, reversing a decision by Judge Sonia Sotomayor and others that had come to play a large role in the consideration of her nomination for the high court.
Given that this is a reversal of Sotomayor’s strenuous opinion upholding New Haven and their racist policies, it would be interesting to see if the GOP has the balls to grill the Wise Latina Woman on an issue when she is clearly holds a minority opinion to the rest of the country, but I doubt they will. It would look bad. But maybe they’ll call Mayor DeStefano as a witness to beat up on him over the injustice he personally did to Frank Ricci, an injustice upheld, fortunately only temporarily, by Judge Sotomayor. If they are too sensitive to ask tough questions of the Wise Latina, they can ask them of the not so wise white guy.
July 8th, 2009 at 3:45 pm
why the “supposedly” in “supposedly claiming a “wise Latina” would make better decisions than a white man”? It’s not supposed, it is a fact. She said it. Thus, we do not have to suppose that she claimed it.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
she’s merely a lecturer at Columbia Law.
July 9th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
The thing that bothers me about her statement is not the content, but the fact that if a white man had said the converse, there would be a massive uproar. Double standards, much like affirmative action, create resentment and hurt minority equality more than they help.
July 11th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Yes, double standards…Because her comment did not cause any controversy at all.
July 11th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
I think Cool-umbia ’08’s point was that if a white man said that, there would be a snowball’s chance in hell for him even being considered for the Supreme Court.
July 11th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I don’t see why it’s so controversial–it was a 5-4 ruling. Hopefully if Obama gets a second term he will have more opportunities to make nominations that would make the court more liberal
July 12th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
I’m not sure I believe that. While Samuel Alito did not make the same comments, his membership in a group that were opposed to allowing women and more minorities to attend Princeton did not prevent him from being considered or even confirmed. While the two situations are not exactly the same, I believe they are similar in that both actions raised suspicions of bias against certain groups.
July 12th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
h’11,
are you serious? Alito belonged to a group that wanted to keep Princeton an all male school, like it had been for the previous 200 years. Jesus, Harvard women were still technically enrolled at Radcliffe until 1999. Concerned Alumni of Princeton was opposed to the liberal policies of the university as a whole, including affirmative action and the attempts to eliminate ROTC on campus (it was around that time that the university eliminated military science
courses for ROTC candidates). Certainly some of its members said things that were a bit extreme, Alito’s membership did not necessarily mean he shared the views of the most extreme members. Sotomayor on the other hand believes that it is ok to discriminate against people based on the color of their skin, so long as that skin color is white, and that being a minority in this country somehow gives moral justification to that attitude. More importantly, she has publicly said that justices’ personal/political opinions should be allowed to dictate court rulings. Its that last bit that has everyone is a tizzy.
July 12th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
while, admittedly, I have not been following this case, if pton’09 is correct and she said that a “justice’s personal/political opinions should be allowed to dictate a ruling,” then this is a sign of a lazy intellect and she shouldn’t be allowed on the bench.
Recall George Bush’s many muddled sentences in the 2000 election. They, too, were a sign of intellectual incompetence but the public took them as endearing character foibles, and we all know what a disaster that turned out to be. We, as a public, should take these subtle indicators more seriously.
July 13th, 2009 at 10:34 am
pton’09,
I did not mean to imply that Alito’s membership in CAP meant he supported all the organisation’s initiatives. And I am certainly not saying that Princeton is more sexist than Harvard or any such thing. All I meant was that, to some people, Alito’s support for CAP was a sign of bias in the same way some people see Sotomayor’s comment as an indication she may be prejudiced. Just as you argue that Alito’s CAP membership had nothing to do with sexism or racism (and I agree), I would say that Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” comment was meant to highlight the fact that different experiences can provide a more complete understanding in certain cases. This is no different from Alito’s acknowledgment that his immigrant background allows him to see immigration cases from a special perspective. Anyways, my point is that both judges faced controversy as a result of their actions so the claim that there is a double standard favoring minorities has not been confirmed in this case. Now if you want to claim that she gives too much weight to her personal and political opinions in her jurisprudence then that’s attacking her judicial philosophy itself and that is another matter I do not wish to get into.