As Atrios and Kos both pointed out today, many on the right — most notably Republican poster-skeleton Ann Coulter — are acting a wee bit elitist when it comes to Harriet Miers’ nomination. Coulter rips on her for not going to an Ivy League law school, insinuating that it speaks to her personal intelligence (it should be noted, of course, that “Ivy League” doesn’t always equal “best;” six of the 10 highest-ranked law schools are non-Ivies). Coulter seems to believe that all the smart kids go to top 10 schools, and going to the 52nd-ranked school means you’re a real dummy.
I suspect she’s never applied to law school.
Both Atrios and Kos went to “humble state schools” for undergrad; Atrios went onto an Ivy League law school and Kos went on to the highly-ranked law school at Boston University (20th, to be precise). I’m coming from a similar place; I went to NYU undergrad and I’m there now for law, and though NYU is private the undergraduate school is ranked somewhere in the 30s (I think) and the law school is much higher. Is there a difference in the general intelligence of the people I have class with now as opposed to last year? Honestly, yes, there is. People work harder. They’re more on top of their shit. But I think a large part of that has to do with the fact that it’s law school. I’m working harder, and I’m more on top of things now than I was a year ago — in a law school environment, you have to be. To get into any top-tier law school is a major challenge. The smartest kids I knew as an undergrad who went onto law school are all over the place — NYU, University of Washington, Fordham, Emory, Brooklyn Law, etc. Law school classes are generally small, and the applicant pools are usually large. It’s incredibly difficult to get accepted at the top schools, even if you are a nerd who spent all your undergraduate years studying. And the admissions process isn’t an exact science; there were definitely people far more intelligent and hard-working than I am who ended up at lower-ranked law schools. That’s just how it works.
So to criticize Miers because her law degree doesn’t have the right kind of pedigreed name on it is ridiculous. Certainly, there are plenty of reasons to question her qualifications as a Supreme Court justice — like, say, the fact that she’s never been a judge and doesn’t seem to have been a particularly distinguished attorney.
But perhaps most disturbing is this point from Coulter:
Third and finally, some jobs are so dirty, you can only send in someone who has the finely honed hatred of liberals acquired at elite universities to do them. The devil is an abstraction for normal, decent Americans living in the red states. By contrast, at the top universities, you come face to face with the devil every day, and you learn all his little tropes and tricks.
So… we don’t need an Ivy League-educated Supreme Court justice because she’ll be more intelligent, we need one because she’ll be bound to hate liberals more. Got it.
Perhaps Ann is just upset that Miers supports radical feminazis– you know, the type who selfishly advocated for things like property and divorce rights for women. via DKos.
In fairness to Coulter (wow, I’m surprised to type those words), she advocates only that that the nominee be from an “elite” school, not an Ivy League school. The only mention of “Ivy League” is in response to the critics who used that designation to make their allegations of elitism. I think Coulter herself went to law school at the University of Michigan.
I don’t particularly care where someone went to school, but for this job I’d like to see a record of extraordinary intellectual accomplishment of some sort after school. If that’s elitist, I guess I’m an elitist.
[Full disclosure: I went to Harvard, but just undergrad, which basically makes me qualified to wait tables at Denny's]
My ex-, after graduating cum loudly from UC Berkeley’s massive undergrad polisci factory, decided not to apply to Boalt at UC Berkeley though she’d very likely have been accepted. (Boalt is number 11 on the list of 100 top law schools.) She also forewent UCLA (#15), despite several invitations from sevaral faculty there to apply. She was accepted into law schools at Boston University (#20), GWU (tied for #20), and Boston College (#27).
She decided to go to American University (#47), because she liked the program there better than at any of her other options.
It’s not all about not getting into the “better” schools. And my ex- is as Type A as they come.
FWIW, I went to the University of Florida, and I’m fairly certain that I’m smartest person on the planet.
Actually ….
… carry the two … electric dipole … dedimus potestatum … Tenzing Norgay … 1011110110 … onomatopoeia …
Yes, yes.
Yes. Make that definitely the smartest person on the planet.
I hate to have to speak up for Ann Coulter, but not only did she apply to and attend University of Michigan Law school, she worked for the US DOJ, the Senate Judiciary Committee, and clerked for Judge Pasco Bowman II on the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. Coulter is open to criticism on many, many fronts, but not having applied to law school is simply not one of them.
A lot of the conservative opposition to Miers has absolutely nothing to do with where she went to law school. In fact, Coulter is the only one on the right I’ve seen who’s explicitly mentioned the issue of where she went to school- and I have seen a lot of conservative criticism of Miers in the past few days. Many conservatives would have had no problem with Diane Sykes (Marquette Univ. Law School), Edith Clement (Tulane), or Maura Corrigan (University of Detroit) being nominated to SCOTUS. Rather it’s the apparent lack of serious consideration of constitutional issues that troubles many conservatives about Miers.
I personally have not made my mind up one way or the other about Miers. I’m hoping she blows everyone away at the hearings. But my concerns about her, and the concerns that 95% of other conservatives have about her, aren’t based in any way on where her degrees came from.
Based on Ann Coulter’s “third and finally”, I’d say she’s so far into self-parody at this point that there’s almost no point arguing with her.
That’s the paragraph of a woman who doesn’t give a shit whether anyone believes her…and conservatives eat that “I’m-cool-because-I-don’t-care” stuff like candy.
Auguste is right. That paragraph should only have been uttered by someone being led away in a straitjacket.
Ah, piss on Annthrax. She’s probably mad that Bushco didn’t nominate her to the SCOTUS.
Wait, then…why would she care whether or not Miers went to an Ivy-League school? Despite being the “Harvard of the West,”* and despite having a very prestigious law school, UofM is definitely not Ivy League.
Hm. On a second reading, it doesn’t look like she does insinuate that Miers should have gone to an Ivy-League school, merely a more prestigious one.
And on an unrelated note, how in God’s name did Ann Coulter end up at the same school as Catherine MacKinnon?
*This is soooooo embarrassing. “The UC Berkeley of West Oakland.” “The MIT of Arkansas.” “The Sorbonne of the Lower Forty-Eight.” Stupid inferiority complex.
Thank god for Jon C. I was dreading the thought of typing the words “in defense of Ann Coulter.” It might have melted down my entire computer, and god knows I can’t afford another one right now.
“As recently as 1970, more than 90 percent of students were men, and some professors made a point of calling on the few women in their classrooms only on periodic “Ladies’ Days.” Former Attorney General Janet Reno, a 1963 Harvard law graduate, recalls then Dean Erwin Griswold asking incoming women at an annual tea to justify holding a place that could have gone to a man. Hannah Arterian, now a dean at Arizona State University, says that whenever female law students at the University of Iowa in the early 1970s spoke up in class, they were made to feel that they were “representing [their] sex–it was awful.” (source)
Considering that Miers was in law school in 1968-1970 (who knows what the rankings were at that point), and was the first woman hired by a prominent Dallas law firm, this may be inter-generational ingratitude from a person who is paid to say crazy, baseless shit.
” . . . Republican poster-skeleton Ann Coulter . . .” HahaHAAA!
Piny–How did Ann end up at the same school as Catherine MacKinnon? She went there to “aquire the finely honed hatred of liberals,” of course. I wonder if Ann ever wakes up in cold sweats from the realization that she could’ve turned out like Catherine. Not, of course, that I’m going to sleep with her to find out. All those protruding bones are probably sharp, and . . . heck, forget the bones, watch out for her tongue!
OK, I apologize to everyone who’s just read that and been traumatized by that mental image I’ve created. If it’s any consolation, so am I.
[Full disclosure: I went to Harvard, but just undergrad, which basically makes me qualified to wait tables at Denny’s]
No. It means that you’re likely to be waiting tables at Denny’s.
It in no way qualifies you.
Wait, so Catherine MacKinnon is actually Satan?
Who says there is no common ground? GO GATORS!
Robert-
You, sir, have the boorish manners of a Yalie!
Hey, Hubris, sing “Fair Harvard”!
Heh. Amen.
You, sir, have the boorish manners of a Yalie!
No, I went to Oberlin. You know – you guys are the us of the East.
Now quit yakking and bring me my pancakes. The tip gets smaller every time you open your yap.
Thank you! Someone got the reference.
Robert,
What’s “Oberlin”?
Oberlin is where the kids too smart for Harvard go.
Although actually I think we churn out about the same number of failed waiters as you guys do.
Now where are my fries, damn it?
They’re in the fryer! Chill!
I might be considered employable in two short months, but after this week I’m not impressed.
Ahhh, I had heard that dear old Professor Skinner built a large Skinner box facility in some out-of-the-way Midwesterny place. Now I know the name: “Oberlin.”
Have a good night, man. ;)
They’re in the fryer! Chill!
Oooh, lip from the server. No tip for you. I’ll have your job for that! (Best response to that tired threat I ever heard in my pizza days: “sir, you can have my damn job.”)
I might be considered employable in two short months, but after this week I’m not impressed.
With the whole “work” concept, with teaching, what? Don’t be coy! Spell it out! Some of us went to Harvard and don’t read well between the lines.
Teaching. I can’t comment on it here, but I have words.
Have I ever mentioned I’m a shitty waitress? No restaurant should ever be able to employ me.
Oberlin is also the alma mater of Michelle and Jesse Malkin.
Just saying.
oooo. Ivy League. how impressive. why, that makes you the intellectual peer of such giants as Dubya.
Coulda gone to Harvard on a Legacy, but it would still be far more money than I want to spend. Sis got a free ride at UPenn.
but I’m at Mizzou. top 20 party school 20 years running.
but not for the parties. for the oldest and most prestigious Journalism school in the world.
Columbia University can suck it. because we’re 4 years older and just all around better.
the lesson? don’t fuck with State Schools. we can be better snobs than most of you rich coast dwellers. and we can drink you under the table. twice in one sitting.
Btw, I went to George Fox University. Do I have to stay out of this conversation altogether?
Oberlin is also the alma mater of Michelle and Jesse Malkin.
Yeah, Michelle makes up for a lot.
Avery Brooks (Cap’n Sisko, DS9) is also an alum.
And Liz Phair! I actualy knew Liz a very little bit. She was cool.
I guess they can come out and say now that Ronald Reagan is dead….
Karpad’s gonna kick yer pansy asses.
Robert,
Pinko Punko from Three Bulls! told me he is friends with Liz Phair’s former roommate at Oberlin.
Not much point to that, just a small world.
Teaching. I can’t comment on it here, but I have words.
[Peter Griffin voice] Camon! Camonnnnn! [/Peter Griffin voice]
You can tell us. We won’t report you, much.
Besides, none of the people who would read it know how to work the Internets.
Yer damn right!
“Nick, I think you’ve had enough rum…but you haven’t had enough WHISKEY!”
good times…good times.
I can’t believe so many of you place an emphasis on the school over the individual.
Speaks volumes.
“I suspect she’s never applied to law school.”
Coulter went to Michigan for law school. I hate Coulter, but I agree; for the Supreme Court, I want elite (including the non-Ivies) lawyers who performed tops at their law school, wrote journal articles, then went on to impressive careers and have judicial experience.
Coulter either graduated or was in her third year when MacKinnon came in in 1989. I believe she may have graduated in 1988.
I was rather revolted to find out that she went to my law school. Which, incidentally, has been pretty consistently rated in the Top 10, if not the Top 5.
And I can say from experience that, yes, the name of the institution matters. I went to UConn undergrad, which has done almost nothing for me outside Connecticut (at least until the men’s basketball team won a few things), but the UM Law degree opens doors. And yet not as many as a Yale or Harvard.
Krauthammer:
[...] and trading coping strategies. Some thoughts on the influence of political blogging. Right-Wing Elitism. This entry was posted on Frida [...]
If I’m reading Coulter correctly, she’s also suspicious of the fact that Miers isn’t in the Federalist Society, or at least part of that orbit, since Miers of course predates the FS.
… actually, I heard that UofM will soon be renamed “UofCatherineMacKinnon”… joy…
Rob, if you only knew how little time the woman actually spends in Ann Arbor. In the three years I attended, she taught one class, and that was an intensive.
… I just thought it was time to shrine…
Hey, she’s the star faculty member. It hardly means they’re shaping all their policy to please her. She wafts in every now and again to teach a class (she retained Connecticut plates on her car when I was there), so she’s not really that big an influence in student life. Not like, say, JJ White, of White & Summers.
And, for the record: Coulter’s Time Magazine cover was in this summer’s Law Quadrangle alumni magazine in the what-the-alums-are-up-to section, much to my horror. So they’re still admitting to her.
As they should be… better in print than as a talking head though…
Good post.
Noah Scheiber has a op-ed in this morning’s New York Post (not yet available online) titled “Snobs of the Right.” He concludes:
“[C]onservative elites are frequently as credentialist, even snobbish, as the liberal elites they scorn. Many conservative pundits and wonks attended top schools, read highbrow publications and belong to exclusive professional societies. They firmly believe that elite credentials signify merit.”
Credentials might mean more in hard sciences such as medicine, but Supreme Court justices are selected primarily to impose morality. They start with a moral position and engineer a legal justification. The details they leave largely to their clerks, and these days, if they have any problem making their dictates sound convincing, they can just go to the blogs.
I had a law-school buddy who went to U of M when Mackinnon was first teaching. Suffice to say that any envy I felt that he got to learn from J.J. White went right out the window hearing about *those* lectures.
Despite being the “Harvard of the West,”* and despite having a very prestigious law school, UofM is definitely not Ivy League.
It’s better than most of the Ivies as far as prestigious-ness of law schools go, which is why Coulter didn’t say “Ivy league”. Certainly she wouldn’t want to suggest there’s a star out of her own reach. The funny part is her whining about liberals–if you want to hang out with liberals, you don’t go to U of M Law.
zuzu, the funny thing about a U of M degree is that it indeed opens doors–everywhere except in Michigan. All the Wayne and Cooley grads stay in-state and they tend to hire their own. U of M people go to the coasts, mostly.
Or Chicago. But it seems that where you’re from is more important. During interviews, I was trying to get jobs in Chicago or Seattle, and every single freakin’ time, I got asked, “You’re from Connecticut. How come you don’t want to go to New York?” The only one who didn’t ask that was a Boston firm.
So I wound up going to New York.
My friends who took her class the one time it was offered during my three years there were also impressed (one guy even had a huge crush on her). But I just couldn’t handle a three-week intensive in the middle of the semester.
Maybe I wasn’t clear–the friends I was speaking about were severely underwhelmed.