The Supreme Court: Where They Went To College (PHOTOS)

Harvard lays claim to the most Supreme Court justices -- five went there for law school. Samuel Alito and Sonia Sotomayor both chose Princeton for their undergraduate degrees; Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer went west for Stanford. John Paul Stevens is the only justice with midwest connections -- he went to the University of Chicago for undergrad and Northwestern for law school.

What do you think? Is the court too ivy-centric?

Obama Supreme Court

• • • • • • • • • • Elena Kagan B.A, Princeton M.Phil., Oxford J.D., Harvard

Comments

[Baileytiger]

10:46 PM on 06/13/2010

I am a graduate of Cornell University. I worked hard to get there, and worked harder to stay and graduate. Of two candidates with equal qualifications, a legacy would get the spot. When I returned for my second year, several new friends were gone. They had flunked out. They had been warned, offered free tutoring, and counseling. They just didn't believe it would happen to them.The College of Engineering at Cornell has a reputation for accepting about 30% more students than the other colleges because the attrition rate is extremely high. Cornell is no joke. You have to do the work to stay there. I knew football players who were benched because of bad grades. Nobody there gets a free pass. I met the most wonderful people there, and it is a part of my life I cherish. A lot of people don't know that the "Ivy League" started as an athletic conference. It was not academically based. Please try to not judge everyone based on where they attended college. It just isn't fair. I wasn't rich then or now, but I remain very grateful for my education. p.s. It was more fun than I could possibly explain. No regrets.

[BambooHarvester]

11:20 AM on 05/17/2010

I thought Tony went to F.U. ?

[Luis Flores]

11:21 PM on 05/15/2010

I would be concerned if our justices were not coming from the best schools. It just happens to be that many of our best schools are from the Ivy league. I wouldn't mind seeing some justices from the great public universities, Berkeley, and UCLA maybe??

[springsm]

10:09 PM on 05/16/2010

UCLA??? I would say UC-Berkeley, but UCLA. You dont' see alot of the other very good schools, because the money trail takes you to the Ivy League and Stanford and the legacies have a leg up into those schools. I am with Luis, they should come from very good schools. Some I think are more reputation than super stellar tho. But the money in the school, in the family and legacies do attract. Where did Thomas go..I didnt' see that?

[Citygirllost]

09:09 AM on 05/13/2010

More Northwestern Alums please? Go Cats!

[TrnsNtnl]

03:02 AM on 05/13/2010

Well that made me want to hurl... thinking thats the crust making our major legal declarations.

[DesertDawgAlpha]

02:44 AM on 05/12/2010

And now not a single member of the Supreme Court who thought enough of the country to serve in the military - even though we hae had had several wars during the period of their adulthood.

Is diversity just a color thing or is it more than that?

[Luis Flores]

11:32 PM on 05/15/2010

I think it's appropriate that our justices have spent their lives studying law, since they rulings are interpretations of the constitution and not decisions on foreign policy. I agree that diversity is not exclusively about color. But choosing those with a better education cannot be portrayed to be discrimination, it just happens to be that most qualified candidates go to the world's top schools, I would think that to be a good thing.

I also disagree with the assumption that serving in the military is the only way to serve a country. A nation needs educational innovation as much as it needs to be defended.

[springsm]

10:12 PM on 05/16/2010

I will give the students at the highly ranked schools credit...but don't ever forget that money gets people in schools and keeps them there. GW Bush would never have gotten into Yale if his grandfather wasn't a trustee and his dad an alum. And then there is McCain...yup...connections matter all over the place. Studying law is a fine occupation, but life should be experienced too. There is no sign that Alioto or Roberts ever experienced that.

[DesertDawgAlpha]

02:36 AM on 05/12/2010

There is no doubt that all the smartest people go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford. This is why an idiot like Warren Buffett left Columbia to finish his college education at, egads, the University of Nebraska.

How very representative. A Supreme Court full of nothing but Ivy Leaguers and made up exclusively of Jews and Catholics. It sounds just like the composition of the United States, doesn't it?

[veritas88]

03:27 AM on 05/12/2010

Justice Stevens is not an Ivy Leaguer.

[veritas88]

03:30 AM on 05/12/2010

Also, Buffett graduated from Columbia Business School. As an undergrad, he transfered to the University of Nebraska from Wharton at UPenn.

[financemajor]

01:12 AM on 05/12/2010

Hard to argue that they aren't extremely intelligent....

[hjp1]

06:47 PM on 05/11/2010

This and 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.

[springsm]

10:14 PM on 05/16/2010

You can argue that one..but she is a diverse person on that bench. How about Ginsberg. That she was educated in the same places, doesn't mean she is a clone. Now we could talk about the wedding cake groom clone, the lying clone and then there is Thomas.

[hjp1]

06:47 PM on 05/11/2010

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.

[veritas88]

03:32 AM on 05/12/2010

not all students at Yale and Harvard or any Ivy League school think the same. it's idiotic to think so. they're human beings, not automatons.

[springsm]

10:15 PM on 05/16/2010

Finally a voice of reason. My gosh.

[Intelligentia]

07:09 PM on 05/17/2010

But, if these guys are so smart, why do they not think on their own? They may have been taught Legal Realism; however, they have to think for themselves!

[hjp1]

06:42 PM on 05/11/2010

I am of the opinion that the Supreme Court is setting itself up for a legal challenge, as to whether or not they are engaging in discrimination, by limiting the Court to Ivy League Graduates.

[Tsckey]

05:37 PM on 05/11/2010

There is a lot to be said for graduating from a prestigious, Ivy League law school, particularly if one desires a lucrative position with a major law firm. But, do the best lawyers and judges come from there? Highly doubtful. It's what one does with what one has that makes all the difference. I've been a lawyer over 30 years. The brightest lawyer I ever met, complete with accolades and bona fide "Lawyer of the Year" awards did not graduate from an Eastern, elite law school, yet one of the dimmest lawyers I ever met did. Is there a lesson here from which we can extrapolate to a broader universe? No. And that's my point. The best and the brightest earn their accolades from hard work, not from their pedigree. Are there any intellectual titans on the Court to whom we might point in proof of Ivy League superiority? Scalia? No. Thomas? Please. Kennedy? Not in this lifetime. Alito? Non. Roberts? I said intellectual, not "in charge." Great minds come from everywhere. It would be in our best interests if someone would expend a bit more effort to find them.

[FatherWolf]

10:55 PM on 05/11/2010

Just curious - who, in your opinion, qualifies as an "intellectual titan" who might be considered for the Supreme Court? Not an obscure genius, but someone who has reasonable background and qualifications to be considered.

[financemajor]

01:15 AM on 05/12/2010

Who gets into the best undergraduate institutions? The high school students with the highest GPAs, SAT scores and hard work demonstrated outside the classroom? Who gets into the top law schools? The college students who graduated from the top schools with the highest GPAs, had the highest LSATs and demonstrated hard work ouside the classroom. This sounds like a very rigorous process, how do you suggest changing this

[DesertDawgAlpha]

02:39 AM on 05/12/2010

A giant like Joe Biden would be an extraordinary Supreme Court justice.

What do you want to bet that the best graduates of state universities, 30 years later, are doing just as well as those from elite institutions such as the Ivies? While Ivies are overpopulated at the Goldman Saches and Lehman Brothers of the world (does that make you feel better) take a look at who is running many Fortune 100 corporations.

[wizegeye]

04:41 PM on 05/11/2010

While those who attend Ivy League law schools do so for the quality of the education, another key factor is the networking capability offered by those schools. Look at where many of the Ivy League grads go just out of college....many work as clerks for US District and Circuit Court judges, as well as the SCOTUS. Others find their way into roles in the Federal government. The opportunities offered by the Ivy League schools through their alumni is unbeatable. There are a number of non-Ivy League schools that equal the Ivy League in the quality of a legal education (Stanford, Michigan, Chicago, etc.), but none are at a level of the Ivy League when it comes to connections (esp. Harvard and Yale).

[Shelley Fish Palmer]

01:42 AM on 05/13/2010

Hah I think I should have been reading more of these posts before I put mine on here. I absolutely agree with you. It's a shame, really because there are plenty of smaller schools out there. They offer excellent education but because they lack lofty, expensive research institutions or don't have big name sports teams they're left by the wayside.

[1Woman4Obama]

02:56 PM on 05/11/2010

The fact that this is even up for discussion is ridiculous. People generally go to the best law schools they get into. The best law schools in the world are the Ivy League schools. Ivy graduates have more opportunities than graduates of other law schools. So while the best jurists in the world don't necessarily go to those schools, it is completely natural that most do.

[wendelswerk]

07:51 PM on 05/11/2010

Not true. There are only so many seats available. If you take a look at the best lawyers in American factoring in earned income (what other measure?), ideas, clarity of writing and decision making the IVYS are not the best law schools. Case in point. Some of the best legal minds and ideas during the 1950's and 1960's didn't come from Ivy Leagues. They came from African American lawyers writing briefs to dismantle 200 years of legal segregation. Most of these lawyers came from Howard University. Thurgood Marshall comes to mind. The Judges on the courts for decades prior came from Ivy League schools and many of these sided with Southern legislatures in discriminating against minorities base upon legal theory. So much for the prominence of Ivy League law schools. This is nothing more than the Old Boy network reconstituted with new faces.

[Intelligentia]

07:17 PM on 05/17/2010

On target!!!!

[soisay]

10:11 PM on 05/17/2010

Exactly! The measure of "annual earnings" or "corporate hiring" or "political appointment" proves only the incestuous relationship within the legal institutional community. In my era it was said "nobody gets fired for picking IBM" now you might say "nobody takes heat for nominating an Ivy grad".

[nellieh]

02:45 PM on 05/11/2010

If Kagan gets confirmed we will have an all Ivy League law school SCOTUS. From it's most recent history of decisions, that is NOT a good thing. Aren't there any other law schools in the country that have produced worthy nominees who could get confirmed? Is this some kind of conspiracy that a nominee HAS to have attended an Ivy League School? This is smelly. I guess if Alito can get confirmed at least one graduate from Regent should be a shoo in. Or another Catholic and then we could change the choice from a vote of the people to a selection with a white smoke coming out of the Supreme Court Building chimney. And one of the female judges could design a hat for the selectee. We won't call him pope. That is taken.

[stagleap03]

03:29 PM on 05/11/2010

Judge Diane Wood (the other of the top 3 Obama picks) is not from the Ivy League. Too bad he didn't pick her. O'Connor and Rehnquist were not from Ivy. Nor is the outgoing Stevens. There are many non ivy justices, and a lot that never even went to law school!!! It's sad that this has become the new requirement to get on the court.

[bruinlover09]

07:20 PM on 05/11/2010

I am concerned with the fact many of justices are from region of the country: New York State/ New Jersey. We need more diversity in other things.

[Kailey Voellinger]

03:57 PM on 05/14/2010

Columbia/NYC is a whole different beast than upstate.