quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

Diversity on the US Supreme Court, NY Times style

basically, they want SC justices who went to Ivy League schools OTHER THAN Yale and Harvard. because U. Penn or Columbia law grads are keepin' it real ... or something.

I dunno, that's not how I read the article...

At least one name on the short list, Federal Judge Sidney Thomas, of Billings, Mont., looks like an intriguing outsider. He was born in Bozeman, got his law degree at the University of Montana in Missoula and he . . . oh, forget it. He ought to know better than most: the door to the modern Supreme Court is closed to anyone from the wrong school.

i remember the dust-up when Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. many of her critics focused on the fact that she went to Southern Methodist Law and not some Ivy League law school -- never mind that she was at the top of her class at Southern Methodist or any other legal accomplishments. (which isn't to say that there weren't OTHER reasons why she didn't deserve to be appointed to the Supreme Court -- the fact that she was basically the Bush Family's consigliere being one of the most important ones -- just that sniffing about her lack of pedigree isn't one of them).

i did overlook the part about Judge Thomas from Montana -- i looked more at the writer's focus on Justice Douglass (who went to Columbia) and Justice Stevens (who went to Northwestern). frankly, those schools aren't exactly beyond the pale for Presidential appointments to the Supreme Court.

in a sense the dude is more cynical than you are tho - he thinks that the problem is so bad that even a columbia grad would be a miracle

columbia is a pretty big deal though isn't it?

not in the context of the current supreme court!

yeah it's considered a step below Harvard and Yale IIRC - these heirarchies are burned into the brains of anyone in the legal profession - i.e. if you want to teach at, say, SMU, you will have to have a JD from tier (x) but not tier (y) etc

and look hey, our last four presidents have been yale-yale-yaleharvard-harvard

talk about turning into France...

I mean my main point is that he's not arguing that columbia law grads are poor unfortunate souls, he's arguing that the status quo is so absurd that even going to the 3rd or 4th best law school in the country is considered a drawback

xp

and look hey, our last four presidents have been yale-yale-yaleharvard-harvard

Obama went to Columbia.

= progress

well clinton went to georgetown but both finished at harvard/yale

...and then went to harvard law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_nationale_d%27administration

in a sense the dude is more cynical than you are tho - he thinks that the problem is so bad that even a columbia grad would be a miracle

that may be, and i don't know what really accounts for the Yale/Harvard dominance on the Supreme Court. (it also overlooks that Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor were both Stanford Law grads.) but i also don't think that anyone would go ballistic if the President nominated someone who "only" went to Columbia or Northwestern (which may now be unrepresented on the Supreme Court but are still pretty damn "elite"). i merely find the argument that someone who didn't go to Harvard or Yale Law would be more likely to "keep it real" simply b/c they didn't go to those institutions to be laughable.

i could definitely the pedigree snobs getting the vapors for someone who went to U. Montana Law (or any other law school like that).

sarko notably didn't get accepted to the undergrad school that traditionally comes before ena

pretty sure they gave our justices their appointments as a reward for having to spend three years in shitty cambridge/new haven

I think he didn't go to ena either? xp

yeah, gimme missoula over NH any day

I think this whole thing sorta overlooks the bigger issue: the fact that such a large % of people who are currently in positions that make them 'SC-eligible' are people who went to yale/harvard.

there's definitely something incestuous about it, i agree.

iatee : no Sarkozy didn't go to ENA. There was some talk about the fact that he didn't go to any of the schools which presidents and major politicians went to.

haha yeah I know, I went to one of them

oh ok sorry! which one btw?

sciences po -paris
(just for a year)

Yeah, that's what I would have guessed. Loads of exchange students there.

its only saving grace

ha! was it that bad?

obama went to occidental college fyi 2 all

was it an accident

~~~~~sigh~~~~~

what movie did obama star in when he went to yr college max

lets get our memes straight

of the ~50 exchange students I knew, maybe 5 would say they "liked" the school and 40 would say that they hated it. a weird amount end up going back for masters though.

xp

hey -- just asking -- have we had a thread about the woman who sent her adopted son back to russia?

Bart Simpson was adopted?

not nytimes but in ny

http://www.observer.com/2010/culture/yaliens-among-us

my head was shaked

just reading the 1st paragraph made me feel bad

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_oJ1idzuym4U/SHKiJl42ByI/AAAAAAAAALE/trSN1PZwLEU/s400/The+French+Revolution.jpg

save america, kill a yalie

I kind of thought NYObserver was known to be on some next-level unabashed ruling class trolling, but I never really read it so I might be wrong.

Jesus, has Manhattan ALWAYS been a mega-strength Ivy League douchebag magnet?!?

i sort of love the observer because it's completely honest about being obsessed with what celebrity is buying which $2 million tribeca loft or whatever

also they hardly ever try to spin any of that shit into a Penetrating Statement on the World Today a la the nytimes

also their mandate is completely different obv

Manhattan is an EVERYTHING-magnet, no?

lol

The New York Observer asserts to advertisers that it delivers Manhattan’s most affluent, educated and influential consumers, with the average net worth of its readership exceeding $1.7 million and 96% of readers being college graduates. It has a paid circulation of 51,000.

from wikipedia, a description of both the founder and the current owner of the observer -- kind of an interesting commentary on how the composition of the city's elite has changed when you think of it:

The publisher and original owner, Arthur Carter has had other publishing interests in the past including the Litchfield County Times. At one time, he was a part-owner in The East Hampton Star. Carter received an A.B. in French literature from Brown University and an M.B.A. in Finance from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He spent twenty-five years in investment banking until 1981, when he founded the Litchfield County Times in New Milford, Connecticut. He owned it for twenty years until selling to Journal Register Company, later also selling his 50-percent interest in The East Hampton Star in 2003. He has been an adjunct professor of philosophy and journalism at New York University and is currently a trustee. He is also a sculptor. Despite his "registered opportunist" political beliefs, from 1985 to 1995 he owned The Nation.

In July 2006, Jared Kushner, a 25-year-old law student and son of a wealthy New Jersey developer, Charles Kushner, purchased the paper for just under $10 million. In April 2007 Bob Sommer became president.

+

Kushner is the son of the New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner.[1] Jared graduated from the Frisch School, a private, coed yeshiva high school in Paramus, New Jersey. He graduated from Harvard College in 2003. Prior to his admission, his father had donated $2.5 million to the university, in what The Boston Globe claimed was an "egregious example of pay-for-Crimson" [2]. In 2007, Kushner graduated from the New York University Stern School of Business and the New York University School of Law where he earned both JD and MBA degrees. [3]. Prior to admission, the family donated money to create NYU's Seryl Kushner Deanship, named after his mother.[4]
Kushner married Ivanka Trump, daughter of Donald Trump, on 25 October, 2009. Kushner is an observant Jew[5] and Trump had converted to Judaism at the time of the engagement.[6]

Charles Kushner is also the guy who was accused of giving Jim McGreevey illegal campaign contributions ... which was of course overlooked after McGreevey came outta the closet.