<p>At least NBC News is reporting that Elena Kagan (Princeton '81) is the nominee to replace Justice Stevens.</p>
<p>NBC:</a> Obama to name Kagan for high court - Supreme Court- msnbc.com</p>
<p>Two female Princeton graduates in a row. Nice.</p>
<p>And three straight Princeton grads now, </p>
<p>a conservative, a liberal and now a moderate…fine mix :)</p>
<p>Meh…im not sure if I would define Kagan as a moderate politically. A liberal moderate maybe, but she definately will act in the interests of the left in the court.</p>
<p>:-(
I’m going to miss Stevens. I disagreed with him a lot, but I liked him.</p>
<p>so…where is german car?</p>
<p>he is now going to tell us again how Princeton is just trerrible for pre-law</p>
<p>^^^ lol, that is exactly what I was thinking.</p>
<p>Solicitor General, Elena Kagan '81 graduated summa cum laude from Princeton, took a masters degree at Oxford and then graduated from Harvard Law School. As the articles note, Kagan was Dean of Harvard Law School prior to becoming the nation’s first female Solicitor General.</p>
<p>Others may remember that the newest U.S. Supreme Court Justice (Sotomayor '76) is also a Princeton graduate and that the next most junior Justice is Alito '72. If Solicitor General Kagan is confirmed, she will be the 12th Supreme Court Justice who received an undergraduate degree from Princeton and the University will have three undergraduate alumni as sitting Justices. Currently Princeton and Stanford have the greatest undergraduate representation on the court with two Justices each. As a previous poster noted, it’s interesting that there is a diversity of opinion represented by these three. Alito is definitely in the conservative camp while Sotomayor is among the liberals and Kagan will be on the liberal side but more centrist than Sotomayor. It may well be that Kagan becomes even more influential because she will, like Kennedy, act as a swing vote.</p>
<p>Princeton has graduated more U.S. Supreme Court Justices than any other undergraduate institution in U.S. history. The second leading institutions are Harvard College and Yale College each of which has graduated ten even while both schools are substantially larger.</p>
<p>
Well Princeton UG are basically third rate students, I’m sure German_car considers it beneath him to associate with such lowly people now.</p>
<p>Ptongrad2000: Do you really think she will be more influential than Kennedy? She’s replacing a consistent liberal vote in Stevens, aside from executive power issues, I think she’ll prove too liberal to really be a swing vote. I like to think that her presence will pull Kennedy more to the left. </p>
<p>Also, you forgot to note that that statistic is really impressive because H/Y are currently not that much larger than Princeton is now, the discrepancy used to much larger. I’m struggling to find the source I had read but it was something along the lines of Yale being twice as large, Harvard 5x and Columbia 10x in the late 1800s.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there is a good chance the republicans will filibuster. :(</p>
<p>There is a zero % chance that the republicans will filibuster. They love her, they could not have picked a better candidate themselves. She is to the Democrats as Stevens was to the Republicans. She is brilliant, no doubt, but I am highly suspicious that she will be the stalwart liberal many are expecting (which is a good thing IMHO) liberals are way to hard on corporations and I have almost sold my souls to those very corporations :). I think she will make a brilliant justice on the whole and will continue the strong Princeton tradition on the court - and this is coming from a loyal Quaker. I just find german_car, koku, goggu, or whatever name that kid is going under these days so annoying that he has brought me to do the impossible - complement Princeton. So, in spite of him, I will admit strength where I see it, complement it when necessary, and then try to emulate it. Dei sub numine viget.</p>
<p>^ I know that nobody wants this to turn into a political discussion, but I hope you are right. </p>
<p>I think it is tough for republicans to go against the party line these days, even if the party line makes little sense. They seem to be marching in lockstep.</p>
<p>I think it depends on whether Hatch likes her. Hatch is actually a pretty reasonable guy when it comes to nominations. If he gives the go ahead, the confirmation is as good as done. If he expresses reservations, it could still happen, but it would require her to do a good job wooing the votes of the Maine Republicans, and Reid is going to have to whip the fringe left in the Senate.</p>
<p>On the “good for Princeton” front, its great for all of HYP. Its another Princeton Grad, and NYT is saying all Justices now have studied at Harvard or Yale Law.</p>
<p>The problem is that she is an administrator, not a judge. She has never sat on a bench.</p>
<p>I hope they take her, and in about 30 years I’ll be old enough to take her spot.</p>
<p>To critique Kagan for lack of experience on the bench is to misunderstand the role of the S. Ct. </p>
<p>[Obama</a> Supreme Court Nominee 2010 - John Paul Stevens Replacement - Esquire](<a href=“http://www.esquire.com/features/people-who-matter-2010/obama-supreme-court-nominee-0210]Obama”>Obama Supreme Court Nominee 2010 - John Paul Stevens Replacement)</p>
<p>this is even more impressive</p>
<p>scary impressive actually</p>
<p>it seems that the percentage acceptance rates are going to drop another percent or so at these two law schools…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Also, assuming Kagan’s confirmation . . . four of the nine Justices grew up in New York City (in four different boroughs, as it happens). Four (not quite the same four) were born in New York State, and two were born in Trenton NJ. None will have gone to a public university. (That is true now, too. The last Justices to have attended a public university were Byron White, who was an All-American football player at Colorado, and Warren Burger, who went to night school at the University of Minnesota.)</p>
<p>Three sitting Justices with undergraduate degrees from Princeton is awfully impressive, but will not match Stanford’s recent run of four for over a decade (Rehnquist, O’Connor, Kennedy, and Breyer).</p>
<p>
Ruth Bader Ginsburg went to Columbia Law.</p>