The New Republic: Obama and Clinton, Harvard and Yale

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>Crimson</a> Tide</p>

<p>An interesting, if somewhat exaggerated, take on the parallels between the transitions of two presidents and the climate of their two law schools.<br>
Briefly summarized:
Harvard: disciplined, competitive, focused on doctrine and the letter of the law: an education informed by reality.
Yale: freespirited, creative, focused on the principle and morality of the law: an education informed by theory.</p>

<p>I was wondering if the cultures of the Universities as a whole and their undergraduate colleges parallel those of their law schools, too.</p>

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<p>^^Sounds more like the endlessly repeated stereotypes of the two schools rather than the realities.</p>

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<p>I enjoyed the article - but I think HLS + YLS are very different beasts than the colleges.</p>

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<p>For a minute I thought you meant "Hillary" by "Clinton", and I got all excited. :(</p>

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<p>Squaregirl, I thought Clinton meant Hillary too. The Obama vs Clinton primary was so epic that Hillary will probably be more famous than her husband.</p>

<p>Overall, I think the OP makes an interesting point. It definitely makes sense but the problem here is the low sample size. Do a comparison of 20 presidents and you might be onto something.</p>

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<p>I agree with the initial response to the OP.</p>

<p>Also....How do you get more famous than a guy that got bjays in the Oval Office?
I mean, c'mon, that's just epic.</p>

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<p>I wish it would have been about Hill clinton, she seems so much more prolific and i would have voted Democratic if she had been the nominee.</p>

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<p>@Dbate - Awes! Sorry, I get happy whenever anyone says anything nice about Hillz. She's ma gal! =D</p>

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<p>Those stereotypes apply to the law schools, not the colleges, and they aren't even really accurate as applied to the law schools, either. Harvard Law School has more than its share of theoreticians, such as Roberto Unger, Duncan ("Funky Dunky") Kennedy, Joe Singer, and Yale has doctrinalists like Lea Brilmayer, Bob Ellickson, Harold Koh. It was basically a cute, superficial idea for an article.</p>

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<p>Funky Dunky? Damn, I guess I need to go to HLS.</p>

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<p>Charles</a> Nesson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is another guy who doesn't really fit that HLS stereotype.</p>

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<p>Actually, Nesson fits the Harvard Law mode extremely well -- he has done a lot of high-profile lawyering, written some very standard stuff, and generally is concerned with making some kind of dent on the real world. I haven't read any of his scholarship in the past 20 years, but I would bet it does not concern itself overmuch with "narratives of legitimacy". It's certainly not the case that the Harvard Law faculty isn't full of frighteningly smart people who think Big Thoughts. It's just that, to a greater extent than at Yale Law School, those Big Thoughts tend to be about legal systems that actually exist in the world, and the problems those systems are actually engaged with.</p>

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<p>JHS - Good points (you definitely know more about this than I do).</p>

<p>I was just referring to Nesson's oddball reputation. He's pretty well known around campus for driving around in a Vespa, playing poker, and confessing to getting high before lecturing on occasion. His blog is also oddly poetic: »</a> michael phelps is a bad example for our children - knot eon</p>

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<p>Oh God. Michael Phelps... People should just stop being weird about that. I mean, he's an athlete, not the president or something. Let him smoke.</p>

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<p>but a-rod. sigh.</p>