Is admissions a meritocracy

<p>I’ve listened to the tapes of some of Judge Sotomayor’s oral arguments and read many of her opinions. My honest opinion is that she’s the best qualified person to be appointed to the Supreme Court in at least 50 years. She runs what the lawyers call a “hot bench”—she asks tough, interesting, legally relevant, and demanding questions of the lawyers at oral argument in appellate cases. Some lawyers don’t like that because they’d prefer to have a passive court, giving the lawyers a free pass to get in their rhetorical licks. Sotomayor clearly does her homework, digs deep into the cases and the relevant precedent, and asks hard questions that get at the underlying factual context as well as the inconsistencies and weak points in the lawyers’ arguments. That’s all entirely appropriate. And frankly, I’d much rather have an active, knowledgeable, and informed judge who does her homework and asks the lawyers the hard questions, than a passive lump like Clarence Thomas who rarely utters a word from the bench and whose opinions are driven far more by political ideology and personal philosophy than by careful analysis and application of relevant legal precedent. (There’s no Justice who more often expresses the opinion that well-established legal precednets shouldf be overturned than Justice Thomas–and that’s the quintessential definition of “judicial activism.”) </p>

<p>I strongly disagree with the suggestion that Sotomayor will make an “unspectacular, mediocre Justice.” She brings a rich and deep background as a prosecutor, commercial litigator, trial court judge, and appellate court judge that is unmatched by any other Justice. She’ll bring a rigor and depth of knowledge about the law and how it affects real people in the real world that’s been sorely lacking in the Supreme Court for many years now.</p>

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It is not that she will make a “terrible” justice, although I may have given that impression when I was joking. It is that she is unspectacular- listen to her speak in those tapes. She doesn’t come across as a brilliant legal mind or as someone who will dazzle us with her intellect once she gets on the court. She comes across as stupid and bossy. When compared to the people Obama could have picked, such as Wood, Kagan, Sunstein, Posner, and a number of others, she is clearly second rate. They are in true legal intellectuals and she is not. That’s really all there is to it.</p>

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This is substantially wrong, but let’s forget about that for a moment. Do you believe there are people more qualified than Sotomayor who Obama could have picked?
Yes or no</p>

<p>No, I don’t see anyone on the horizon who is better qualified than Sotomayor. I do think there are some who might outshine Sotomayor in sheer intellectual firepower, but that’s not the point. I don’t think we’ve ever had a Supreme Court drawn from as narrow a base of experience as the present one, and the people you name—Wood, Kagan, Sunstein, Posner—would essentially compound that problem. Consider who’s on the Court and their backgrounds:</p>

<p>Ruth Bader Ginsburg: law professor, civil rights lawyer, federal appellate judge (DC Circuit)</p>

<p>Stephen Breyer: law professor, short stints in the Justice Department antitrust division and as assistant Watergate special prosecutor, federal appellate judge (1st Circuit)</p>

<p>John Paul Stevens: antitrust litigator, state-level special prosecutor, federal appellate judge (7th Circuit)</p>

<p>Antonin Scalia: 6 years private practice, several years in various federal government jobs, law professor, federal appellate judge (DC Circuit)</p>

<p>Anthony Kennedy: solo practitioner, law professor, federal appellate judge (9th Circuit)</p>

<p>Samuel Alito: assistant U.S. attorney, assistant solicitor general (U.S. Justice Department), deputy attorney general, U.S. Attorney, federal appellate judge (Third Circuit)</p>

<p>Clarence Thomas: assistant state A.G., federal political appointee (Department of Education, EEOC), federal appellate judge (DC Circuit)</p>

<p>John Roberts: deputy solicitor general (U.S. DOJ), private practice specializing in federal appellate litigation, federal appellate judge (DC Circuit)</p>

<p>All impressive credentials, right? But consider what’s missing. No one with experience as a local prosecutor, the level at which the vast majority of criminal prosecutions happen and where retail-level justice is administered. Very little experience on the current court with any kind of business law, even though commercial cases represent a very large fraction of all of civil litigation in this country, and commercial matters consume a disproportionately large fraction of all attorney time when you take into consideration all the transactional work that goes into making deals that will NOT end up in litigation. Justice Stevens is widely recognized as the only member of the current court who has any kind of extensive experience in business law, and his experience is largely confined to the antitrust area—important, to be sure, but a pretty exotic and in some ways narrowly isolated branch of business law. No one who has ever served as a trial court judge at any level. In short, it’s not much of an exaggeration to say the current Supreme Court is narrowly drawn from the ranks of federal government lawyers, law professors, and federal appellate judges, half of the latter drawn from the DC Circuit which primarily handles cases involving various agencies of the federal government. Each may have had an impressive career within that narrow domain, but there’s never been a time in our nation’s history when the Supreme Court was drawn from such a narrow spectrum of the legal profession and such arcane corners of American life, or represented such a DC-centric set of life experiences.</p>

<p>Now along comes Sonia Sotomayor. Experience: 5 years as a local criminal prosecutor in New York City, on the front lines of the criminal justice system. Six years as a commercial litigator in New York City, the commercial hub of the nation, specializing in intellectual property and international commercial litigation—both hot growth areas in business practice. Five years as a trial judge on U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New york (Manhattan and the Bronx), where she developed a reputation as a tough, non-nonsense judge, tough on criminal sentencing and knowledgeable about the complex business cases that came before her court, all the while managing cases efficiently and expeditiously. Ten years as a federal appellate judge for the 2nd Circuit seated in New York City, the appellate circuit that handles the highest volume of complex, difficult, and important commercial law cases in the country. (Just anecdotally, commercial lawyers I know say they live in mortal terror that any important business law case will get to the current Supreme Court because the Court’s ignorance in these areas is so vast that it represents a complete wild card on these matters; better to leave it in the 2nd Circuit which generally knows what it’s doing when it coems to business law).</p>

<p>Diane Wood, Elena Kagan, Cass Sunstein, and Richard Posner are all brilliant people and respected legal academics. But a seat on the Supreme Court isn’t a merit badge for being the smartest kid in the room—or even for being the best law professor. Essentially each of these people would compound the narrowness of the experiential base of the current Court—they’re people whose backgrounds are exclusively in academia, as federal government lawyers, and in Wood’s and Posner’s cases, on federal appellate courts (both on the 7th Circuit). None of them brings local prosecutorial experience. None of them brings a substantial background in business law. None of them has ever served on the front lines as a trial judge. None of them has practiced or served on the bench in New York City, the nation’s commercial hub. In short, they’re pretty much cut from the same cloth as the current Gang of Eight. They might write better law review articles than Sonia Sotomayor. But Sotomayor has the background and experience to make major contributions to the Supreme Court that these folks can’t even dream of because they come out of the same narrow academic-federal agency-appellate court revolving door that dominates the current Court.</p>

<p>That said, I think there’s a strong probability that both Wood and Kagan will end up on the Court before Obama is through. Stevens is pushing 90, Ginsburg has health problems, and Scalia and Kennedy are no spring chickens (both 73). If Obama wins a second term, he could easily have 2 to 4 more Supreme Court appointments.</p>

<p>The experience you are talking about appears to be irrelevant. Can you explain how it will make her a better justice than someone whose IQ is at least a standard deviation higher than Sotomayor’s IQ?</p>

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<p>You are joking, right? IQ means nothing by itself. There are a fair amount of high IQ jerkoffs who have nothing to their name other than what they scored on a test. Even a scientist, whose career depends on his smarts doesn’t win awards for having a high IQ–he wins awards for outstanding research.</p>

<p>^^^ IQ counts for something when determine who should be on the SCOTIUS. Ideally a justice should be hard working and respected and have a stratospheric IQ. Otherwise they are most likely not intelligent enough to be good justices.</p>

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<p>IQ is worthless. If you want to evaluate someone’s intelligence, look at what he/she says and does.</p>

<p>^^ Are you serious? That’s just stupid and flies in the face of all reasonable thinking. You have to a certain IQ to be a doctor, don’t you? Maybe we should let everyone into medical school. Isn’t that a good idea? We should set the MCAT so that is has no correlation with IQ. IQ tests are culturally biased after all.</p>

<p>You don’t have to have a certain IQ to be a doctor. You have to get a certain MCAT score to be a doctor. And even then, nobody claims that’s because people with a lower MCAT score are inherently unable to be doctors; it’s just that medical schools can only accept so many people, and they have to pick the best somehow.</p>

<p>LOL. Not once do the committees that decide who gets the Fields or Pulitzer Prizes consider the candidates’ IQ. “hmm…yes that was a groundbreaking theorem he just proved . . . but oh, wait, he only has an IQ of 110. Better give the prize to someone else.”</p>

<p>People become successful on their merit, not on their test scores. To think otherwise is “stupid and flies in the face of all reasonable thinking.”</p>

<p>Amarkov, MCAT is correlated with IQ.</p>

<p>Silience, </p>

<p>No one with a 110 IQ would be able to do something like that. I would be willing to bet a million dollars on that.</p>

<p>So what if MCAT scores are correlated with IQ? That doesn’t even mean that high MCAT scores are generally caused by high IQ, much less that high IQ is NEEDED to get a high MCAT score. Learn statistics better before you start abusing it.</p>

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<p>Maybe, or maybe not. Who knows? Who cares? Taking an IQ test is pretty uncommon nowadays–mostly the test is employed when a child is suspected of being developmentally disabled.</p>

<p>In any case, looking at IQ scores doesn’t tell you anything when you are deciding who to appoint to the SCOTUS. Looking at accomplishments tells you a lot. And no, doing well on an exam isn’t an accomplishment.</p>

<p>Yes, I’m sure people with low IQs dominate the MCAT. lulz</p>

<p>People with low IQs don’t dominate the MCAT, or there would be no correlation. That also fails to address a single thing I said.</p>

<p>No, it does address what you said. The MCAT is correlated with IQ because a high IQ is needed to do well on it, and it also needed to perform most complex tasks.</p>

<p>Don’t let the posts in this thread fool you–Killbilly is one smart dude. Just look at how well he did on this one exam 5 years ago !!!</p>

<p>Can you prove the causal relationship there? If not, all you have is a single correlation, and assuming that one thing caused the other is horrible statistics.</p>

<p>The main reason I think the MCAT is an IQ test is that the results along race and sex lines are consistent with what we see in IQ tests. IOW, it’s not just “higher IQs do better” , it’s “scores break down among the same lines IQ does”. This indicates the MCAT is a g loaded test.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/pubs.htm[/url]”>http://www.aamc.org/students/mcat/examineedata/pubs.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This used to link to a page with that data but the link appears to be broken.</p>