by Yvette Carnell
We keep expecting “Change We Can Believe In”. But with the nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, we’re beginning to realize that change is a multi-dimensional, and ever illusory phenomenon.
If Elena Kagan is confirmed by the U.S. Senate, then her addition to the high court will mean that all nine of the Justices will have attended either Yale or Harvard Law School.
Disturbing.
This becomes increasingly unsettling when one considers that whether or not a student is accepted into an Ivy League institution is much more a reflection of the tenacity of the student’s parents and the individual student’s adherence to a meticulous test preparation schedule rather than a reflection of actual intelligence.
The characteristics needed to qualify for acceptance into an ivy league institution are not intrinsically negative. It’s good to have involved parents and the internal fortitude required to adhere to a rigorous academic schedule. But none of these qualities are adequate indicators of whether a potential Justice possesses two of the most essential prerequisites for ascending to the Supreme Court; intellectual capacity and solid judgment.
To be a student, to a large extent, means to be redundant. The student’s ability to memorize and regurgitate what are mostly meaningless bits of information is then used to determine his or her success. Therefore, to be an excellent student, the class of which are admitted to ivy league schools, implies an even greater degree of redundancy.
The question then becomes; how is redundancy compatible with the level of judicial problem solving demanded of a Supreme Court Justice? You can’t very well memorize and regurgitate your way to a groundbreaking Supreme Court decision. The cases which inevitably arrive at the Supreme Court are cases where the lower courts haven’t discovered a solution which adequately resolves a particular discrepancy, disagreement, or controversy.
What’s more, as a Justice you’re one of only nine Supreme Court Justices. This means that as a country we would benefit immensely from a more independent minded legal eagle rather than a lockstep ivy leaguer. Let’s be honest, ivy leaguers are better known for their rigorous adherence to a pre-defined map which leads to either Yale or Harvard than for their truly original approaches to academia.
Some ivy league attendees do indeed blaze a trail so awe-inspiring that elite institutions can’t help but take notice. For the most part, however, acceptance is the path of least resistance. Get good grades. Take SAT preparation courses. Become involved in as many mundane activities as possible, regardless of your interests, because Ivy league institutions look for the quantity of activities, not quality.
Ever wonder why two of the most innovative entrepreneurs of our time, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, found it necessary to leave college in order to truly summon the genius required to become transformative agents of technological change? Quite simply, most colleges are designed to teach students how to become common cogs in a wheel. Ivy League schools teach them how to be the most dependable, yet unremarkable cogs in any wheel. In order to reach true creative nirvana, both Jobs and Gates needed to escape their habitual institutions.
But potential Supreme Court Justices cannot escape their Ivy League institutions as they are not allowed the same level of latitude as are their more creative counterparts. In order to even be considered by the President’s Supreme Court search committee, you must have completed your law degree at an Ivy League university. With the addition of Kagan to the Supreme Court, we’ll have a Court comprised of Justices who all attended either Harvard or Yale. Our Supreme Court Justices are now defined by their sameness, not their genius.
Sadly, homogeneity is not a quality which serves to illuminate or to add clarity. Quite to the contrary, it usually serves only to narrow our collective understanding. And at this point in our American history, it would behoove our Justices to expand our understanding and that of one another, and not to contract into some indistinguishable carbon copy of one another. It is my hope that in the future, we’ll begin to see some true intellectual diversity on the Court and not just racial diversity.
