Intellectual Snobbery and Harriet Miers

Color me annoyed and amused at the stink over Harriet Miers lack of Ivy League credentials (here too).

I can't even imagine how to finesse this topic, so let me just admit right here to being blatantly arrogant.

In high school, I ran in the social circle of ivy league hopefuls (and a few other less socially desirable circles as well). I was considered a shoo-in, but was declined admittance by two ivy league schools as a 16 year old senior (I later was admitted as an undergraduate transfer to a third, but wasn't interested at that point). Intelligence was not what got people into those schools. Of course, we all know this: those schools are looking for a lot more, and in their judgement I didn't have what they wanted. Another point that is clear is that it wasn't the limited wisdom or often fully developed character and integrity of 18 year olds that those colleges wanted either.

What was eminently clear though was that as a college undergraduate I worked far harder than my friends at ivy league schools (with the exception of one in Cornell's architecture program). I don't think my experience is unique. Lots of folks went to second or third tier schools, and many of those places had academic chips on their shoulders.

In my case, I went to what is now known as the University at Buffalo. In my day, it was SUNY at Buffalo. The flagship campus of the state university system of the biggest liberal state in the country. They thought of themselves as the Berkeley of the east. No one else did, but they made quite sure that their students did Berkeley level work or better. I had a chip on my shoulder too, so I sought out the highest levels of work offered there.

Frankly, I was appalled at the limited coursework and nonsensical activities engaged in by friends at better schools. Most of those places seemed like day camp for young adults. Out in the real world of the post-graduate big chill, it's hard for me to see what that got any of them.

In sum, I think Harriet Miers educational background is the least of anyone's worries. It's nothing short of prejudice to say otherwise.

Comments

[john top]

yes, indeed. For evidence in support of this post we need look no further than the current occupant of the White House, Yale 1968 and Harvard MBA 1975.

[john top]

yes, indeed. For evidence in support of this post we need look no further than the current occupant of the White House, Yale 1968 and Harvard MBA 1975.

[Dave Tufte]

Agreed.

[CHenry]

The last two departures from the Court, William Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor were both multiply degreed from Stanford, not an Ivy League School.

Maybe it's time for a Southern Methodist University grad, then maybe someone from the University of Pittsburgh, and after that, someone from another university more representative of the country over which the Court presides. I sort of like the idea that Miers doesn't come from the U.S. Court of Appeals.

[Half Sigma]

Miers' lack of an Ivy League caliber degree is just one part of a whole picture of Miers as just an ordinary attorney and not an extraordinary jurist and intellectual who deserves an appointment to the highest Court.

[Dave Tufte]

REPLY to CHENRY:

I think Stanford is tantamount to Ivy League.

REPLY TO HALF SIGMA:

Agreed. But it's too much a part of the argument.

[CHenry]

"I think Stanford is tantamount to Ivy League."

Stanford is not the only school that could be said to have achieved the renown of the eight schools in the Ivy League. Stanford isn't an East Coast institution, though, unlike all of the Ivies, which is more to the point. The same could be said for the University of Chicago or Duke or Michigan.

[Dave Tufte]

Chicago - yes

Duke - probably. This will tick off some Duke snobs. But Duke is part of a long set of high-but-declining-quality private schools scattered across the East (and mostly the South). Duke is probably at the top of that group - but there are many contenders (Vanderbilt, Washington, Rice, Emory, Tulane, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and so on through Brandeis, Tufts, Temple, Northeastern, Xavier, Loyola, and others). If it were me, I'd put Wash U. and Hopkins as closer to Ivy League than Duke.

Michigan - no. I am a great believer that the quality of big state schools is vastly underrated (as evidenced by my huffiness in the original post). I think the really big difference here is the ability of the Ivy League schools to play tenure-track professors off against each other to get the most production. The big state schools can't do that.

[Valentin]

I've been satisfied with the President's apompntients and policies so far, although I wish he was tighter with the money. I'm conservative, from Texas, and I'm hearing some good things about Ms. Miers. No, she'd not who I'd have picked either, but absent the political ability to break a filibuster, I'm not sure we could get somebody I'd pick. I don't, today, see the Republicans in the Senate in a position to break a filibuster, or in a position to use the so called "nuclear option." Absent these conditions, what other candidate is possible other than some kind of stealth candidate ? Yes, I know we got burned with Souter, O'Connor and Kennedy in the past, but I feel better about this Bush than I did his dad. I think his instincts are good.At any rate, the appointment is done,and we must see what comes of it. Until we have some evidence that this choice really is the wrong one, I'm disposed to give the President the benefit of the doubt. With so many foreign and domestic enemies battering at the gates, I see no good reason to give them comfort by Conservatives failing to back the President to the nth degree now.

[David Tufte]

This comment is so odd. I can't see how it is spam. And yet, it is several years out of date. Hmmm ...