Theo Lippman of the Baltimore had wished Elena Kagan would not be confirmed. It’s not because Kagan isn’t equipped for the Supreme Court, it’s that she would only add to the growing list of concerns that the public has with a Supreme Court not the least of which is that the SCOTUS may be “out of touch” with public opinion. Unfortunately for Lippman, Kagan was just confirmed.

Now, with Kagan’s confirmation, all Supreme Court justices will have attended private ivy-league law schools when in the past many hailed from public schools. Not a single one was previously elected into a government position.

Lippman states:

The makeup of the court in the spring of 1954 was quite different from any before or since. Six of those justices graduated from public law schools. Chief Justice Earl Warren was a University of California man. Justice Hugo Black went to the University of Alabama law school. Tom Clark went to University of Texas, and Robert Jackson went to Albany Law School in New York. Sherman Minton went to a public law school now called the Indiana Law School.

The “Ivies” of the Warren Court were William Douglas (Columbia Law School, then professor at Columbia Law and Yale Law School); Felix Frankfurter (student and professor at Yale Law School) and Harold Burton (graduated from Harvard Law School).

The ninth justice in 1954 was Stanley Reed. He attended the University of Virginia Law School and Harvard Law School, but he did not graduate from either. He is the only justice in modern times without a law school diploma.

[Read the rest of his article here]

[Political cartoon on "diversity" of SCOTUS]

Is there a problem with an all-Ivy Supreme Court? Sound off in the comments below.