Mr. Justice Scalia and the Moritz School of Law

In one of my first posts on this blog I argued that easterners are inclined to dismiss Midwesterners as rubes and that Glenn Fellows, who tend to be professionally ambitious and have every reason to be, forget or ignore this at their peril.

There could be no more dramatic example than that provided a few years ago by Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. As Adam Liptak reported in May, 2009, in The New York Times, Justice Scalia, speaking at American University in Washington, D.C., explained to an audience of law students that their chances of landing a clerkship with a Supreme Court justice were slim or none because those plums are reserved for students from America’s most prestigious law schools. According to Liptak, the “hard truth” is that “Over the last six years, the justices have hired about 220 law clerks. Almost half went to Harvard or Yale. Chicago, Stanford, Virginia and Columbia collectively accounted for 50 others.” Liptak reports that “Justice Scalia said he could think of one sort-of exception to this rule favoring the elite schools.” To wit:

One of my former clerks whom I am the most proud of now sits on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals” in Cincinnati, the justice said, referring to Jeffrey S. Sutton. But Justice Scalia explained that Mr. Sutton had been hired by Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. after his retirement and then helped out in Justice Scalia’s chambers. “I wouldn’t have hired Jeff Sutton,” Justice Scalia said. “For God’s sake, he went to Ohio State! And he’s one of the very best clerks I ever had.”

As one can readily imagine, Justice Scalia’s remarks inspired a kerfuffle in Buckeyeland. The Columbus Dispatch reported that Scalia was “not a big fan of OSU law graduates,” and the Ohio State Bar Association objected to the “insult” and issued a sharp rejoinder, arguing that “Intellect, skill and fundamental integrity are not measured by the school someone attends. Birthright, money, LSAT scores and magazine rankings of law schools are not the standards by which this profession judges itself.” My reading of this story is that Justice Scalia was conveying brute facts that are not really in dispute, and that his enthusiastic endorsement of Judge Sutton indicates that he understands that the prejudice in favor of elite law schools is ultimately not rational. True, he would seem disinclined to buck the system that from which he has profited, yet I think it’s pretty clear that his “For God’s sake” remark was intended as irony. They learn that sort of thing at the elite law schools, such as Harvard, where Scalia earned his law degree.

September 14, 2009, update: Further evidence that Harvard law graduates tend to be lovers of irony comes from an AP story that Lawrence Hurley cites in his Supreme Court blog, Washington Briefs. Elitist joke alert: Asked if too many of the justices came from elite law schools, Chief Justice John Roberts says no—some went to Yale (AP).

Paul C. Light on the Comptroller General of the United States

In the old days, when GAO stood for General Accounting Office, many Americans might have thought of it, to the extent that they thought of it at all, as an agency full of Bob Cratchits (see image above), with or without their green eyeshades. On Wednesday, June 29, at 6:30 in the Hall of the States, the Glenn Fellows will learn about the work of what is now called the Government Accountability Office from two staffers, OSU graduates Patrick Dynes and Jillena Roberts. The head of the GAO is the Comptroller General of the United States. Currently, that post is held by Eugene Louis Dodaro.

For a little background, here is a link to an article published in May, 2010, by Paul C. Light of New York University, one of America's leading public policy scholars. Light refers to the Comptroller General as "perhaps the most important job that most Americans do not know about."

Summer 2011 Glenn Fellows Arrive D.C.

We have had our orientation for the summer 2011 WAIP and G-WAIP fellows (see photo above, taken at the Pension Building). Mike McCandlish and I encouraged the fellows to read a daily newspaper or two, and I referred explicitly to The Washington Post. As I did so, I felt a little guilty, as I always do, about withholding an endorsement of The New York Times, which is, all things considered, the better paper.

But here in the nation’s capital, The Washington Post is our hometown rag, and that means more complete coverage of local events, reviews of museum exhibitions, local theaters and restaurants, and the like. But mainly, the Post does a better job of covering the company in what is essentially a company town. And that company is, of course, the federal government.

There is, for starters, Joe Davidson’s regular column in the Post. Today’s "Federal Diary" explores some of the reasons why the federal government seems to have such a hard time hiring and firing, and why it is so difficult for recent college graduates and MPAs to secure federal employment through USAJOBS. According to Davidson, Congress is looking into the matter, and it comes at an opportune time for us, since the fellows will be engaging in a conversation next Tuesday evening with former U.S. Senator John Glenn, an eloquent spokesman for the merits of public service. And in the following week, we’ll hear a presentation on federal hiring by Julie Saad, a thoughtful WAIP alumna who now works for the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the federal government's HR office.

Congress’s inquiry, undertaken by the Senate subcommittee on the federal workforce, chaired by Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii), appears to be targeting OPM policies. Ironically, based on my experience in the executive branch, I would submit that the roots of the federal government’s hiring problems may be statutory—i.e., embedded in the fine print of legislation passed by Congress--rather than regulatory.

Whatever the cause, the fact is that for so long as the federal hiring process is deeply flawed, America’s best and brightest young people, such as those in the photo above, will be discouraged from entering the federal service. That may not constitute a national crisis--not yet, anyway--but certainly, it is a pity.