Sources of Supreme Court Justices law degree.
Roberts Harvard
Stevens Northwestern
Scalia Harvard
Kennedy Harvard
Souter Harvard
Thomas Yale
Ginsburg Columbia (but attended Harvard Law as well)
Breyer Harvard
Alito Yale
Thus 5 of 9 are Haavard graduates, and a 6th attended Harvard Law for some period). Two of the remaining four are from just down the road a bit at Yale. Columbia is not all that far away either, at least by Western standards. The one non Northeastern law school represented is in Chicago, not exactly the West or South either.
Seems like an awful concentration of influence, don’t you think? It’s not like there aren’t great law schools elsewhere in the country. Here’s the US News latest ranking of law schools. (many ties)
1 Yale University (CT)
2 Harvard University (MA)
2 Stanford University (CA)
4 New York University (NY)
5 Columbia University (NY)
6 University of Chicago (IL)
6 University of Pennsylvania (PA)
8 University of California–Berkeley (CA)
8 University of Michigan–Ann Arbor (MI)
10 Duke University (NC)
10 University of Virginia (VA)
12 Northwestern University (IL)
13 Cornell University (NY)
14 Georgetown University (DC)
15 University of California–Los Angeles (CA)
16University of Southern California (Gould) (CA)
16 Vanderbilt University (TN)
18 University of Texas–Austin (TX)
19 Washington University in St. Louis (MO)
20 Boston University
Don’t know about you but having 5 of 9 Supreme Court justices having gotten their law degrees in Boston, (I know Harvard is in Cambridge, been there, wasn’t impressed. But was impressed at MIT) and two more in New Haven, scares the Shiite out of me.
Although with Cambridge only a few miles from Lexington and Concord, and pretty close to Breeds Hill as well, you’d think maybe the lessons of Patriot’s Day might penetrate by osmosis. Some of the fighting that day was in Cambridge and maybe even on or near Harvard, which IIRC was already in place along what came to be known as The Battle Road. In fact they probably dug up artifacts of the battle when they built the law school, the law school having been established 42 years later in 1817.
You know, if you hook Tom Dudley up to a generator, he could probably power the Harvard campus, the old guy is spinning in his grave that fast.
Seems like an awful concentration of influence, don’t you think?
And Those who go to Harvard, are not their because they are liberally or urbanly or northeasternly inclined, but because they are the most highly regarded candidates.
Put simplistically, the best go to Harvard, and the best go to SCOTUS (as a rough correlation.)