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.