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A ?Diverse? Supreme Court?

It?s understandable that devotees of ?diversity? are usually loathe to discuss religion. Although they often speak (speciously) of ?culture,? the affirmative action apparatus they have constructed ties ?diversity? and ?multiculturalism? only to skin color and ethnicity. If forced to confront religion, they must argue either a) that religion is not relevant to ?culture? and so cannot be used as a basis for ensuring ?diversity?; or b) that organizations should distribute benefits and burdens on the basis of religion, just as they do now on the basis of race and ethnicity. Faced with this choice, they invariably choose c) neither of the above; ignore religion altogether.

So, I wonder if anyone in the White House has noticed that if Elena Kagan is confirmed, the Supreme Court will comprise six Catholics, three Jews, and no Protestants.

I don?t particularly care about the justices? religion, but you?d think that preferentialists, who are always prattling about the necessity of making sure that all institutions ?look like America,? might be concerned about the increasingly dramatic ?underrepresentation? (actually, unrepresentation) of a not insignificant group on the nation?s highest court.

A reader, Alex Bensky, put this well in an email:

If [Kagan] is confirmed that will mean three of the nine justices are Jewish. Disparate impact being ipso facto evidence of discrimination, likewise overrepresentation, this is empirical proof positive of favoritsm to Jews. Whether this is the result of a dark conspiracy by you-know-whos (rhymes with ?you-know-whos?) I cannot say. But certainly court decisions and liberal thinking indicates that for whatever reason there something fishy going on here.

There is another blatant discriminatory attitude here. If Kagan is confirmed all of the nine justices will be graduates of Harvard or Yale law schools. [Ed: Actually, Justice Ginsburg enrolled in Harvard Law School but got her degree from Columbia, but this doesn?t weaken Bensky?s point.] What?s the diversity here? I am hardly suggesting that justices should be found among, say, University of Idaho graduates. That?s Sarah Palin?s undergraduate school and all us correct thinkers know that means the school is lousy. But no one from the University of Chicago or Cal, Duke, Columbia or, dare I say it, the University of Michigan which gave me my law degree? (I imagine that last fact embarrasses them as much as it does me.)

It would be a benefit of diversity for the Ivy League law graduates on the bench to rub elbows with humbler lawyers who went to less wonderful law schools and isn?t that what diversity is all about?

Whatever ?diversity? is about these days, religion isn?t part of it.

Full post as published by Discriminations on May 13, 2010 (boomark / email).