Too smart for the supreme court?
Last Friday, our own Sam Gill had an op-ed in USAToday challenging the notion that a player could be too smart for the NFL. The same day (coincidence?) in a Daily Beast column, Peter Beinart challenged the notion that the Supreme Court should not be made up entirely of Ivy Leaguers. Beinart claims, “the Supreme Court is not supposed to comprise a cross-section of the American public, or of the American legal profession. It is supposed to constitute an intellectual elite…. There’s nothing wrong with wanting the judge reading the brief—like the radiologist reading the X-ray—to have graduated at the top of her class, not in the middle.” Beinart goes on to respond to the claim that Ivy League graduates will have a monotonous, elite worldview by showing that the Supreme Court justices, though all Ivy League grads, come largely from working-class backgrounds. So, what do you think? Are there too many Ivy Leaguers on the Supreme Court? Would someone from the top of his or her law class at the University of Michigan or the Berkeley really be that different?
-Marc
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