Over at Originalisms, Tim Shuman gives what I think is unshakeable evidence that whatever the basis of conservative opposition to the Miers nomination may be, it is not law school snobbishness:

In the end, the depression, disappointment, and demoralization of many conservatives (especially those with legal training) is not about snobbish elitism over Miers's education at SMU. As Power Line has pointed out, the list of potential nominees come from diverse law schools: Karen Williams went to the University of South Carolina; Priscilla Owen, to Baylor University; Maura Corrigan, to the University of Detroit; Alice Batchelder, to the University of Akron.

I would add that Janice Rogers Brown went to UCLA; Edith Jones went to the University of Texas; and Edith Clement went to Tulane.

Now we could argue that some of these schools are more elite than others, but that is beside the point. What separates every single one of the candidates I just named from Harriet Miers is that each has some sort of judicial or appellate experience. Each one has conservative appellate credentials that we people who are not President Bush can observe, so we are left with more to rely on than "trust me."

James Joyner at Outside the Beltway has a post on the related elite/non-elite debate that seems to have erupted among conservatives. He makes an interesting point:

Conservatives love to make fun of "elites" but we are not without our own. Indeed, until the incorporation of Evangelical Christians into the movement in the 1970s and 1980s, conservatism almost certainly had more elites as a percentage of the movement than did liberalism. At least the George Wills, William F. Buckleys, and Bill Kristols of the world recognize that they are themselves part of an elite and eschew use of that rhetoric. Others, including Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and Bill O'Reilly don't see that irony.

Indeed, having attended an Ivy League college and what most would consider an "elite" law school, I am finding this whole debate pretty fascinating. I became good friends with many members of what could only be called the "conservative elite," having rather "conservative" jurisprudential views of my own, and have always been struck by the elite education of many leaders of a conservative movement that oftens decries liberal elitism regarding higher education. And it is not as if Republicans have been been putting country bumpkins on the Supreme Court. Souter went Harvard/Harvard, Thomas went Holy Cross/Yale, Kennedy went Stanford/Harvard, Scalia went Georgetown/Harvard, and O'Connor and Rehnquist both went Stanford/Stanford.

I for one don't think that where someone went to law school should be a big factor in a nomination, especially when one notes that the only justice to attend my law school was perhaps the most awful, bigoted man ever to sit on the court. But it has been interesting to watch this aspect of the Miers nomination debate.

Gabriel | 6 October 2005 | Permalink