Academic

Elena Kagan has done a lot for the law students at Harvard (see my own dean, Kevin Washburn?s, recent essay on that topic). But are her hearings ? and all Supreme Court confirmation hearings for that matter --undoing some of that good work? Are confirmation hearings bad for law students because they discourage active debate on controversial topics in class?

I remember when I was a law student having the distinct impression that my fellow students were reluctant to talk about hot-button issues like abortion in class for fear of putting themselves on the record should they ever be nominated for a plum job. In other words, you wouldn?t want something in class that could come back to haunt you decades later when some Senator grills you.

Of course that?s a ridiculous attitude. Or is it? Reporters have been combing through Kagan?s senior thesis and newspaper columns at Princeton for clues to what kind of justice she would be. A ridiculous process leads to ridiculous behavior from over-optimistic law students. I?m fairly sure the reluctance to speak in class is not limited to law students at Harvard. Lots of students at every school dream big dreams. Every kid dribbling down at the basketball court on the corner has NBA day dreams. Except in hoops, those daydreams lead to too many circus shots, while in law schools, perhaps the SCOTUS dreams lead to too few.

Perhaps my law school experience is dated (and, in my classes, views on topics like corporate freeze-outs are unlikely to come back to haunt students). Law professors and students, feel free to comment below on whether students are still reluctant to discuss hot topics for fear of future confirmation fights.