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Real diversity on the Supreme Court.

Lawprof Daniel J. Meador says:

Diversity is usually discussed in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity. But for the Supreme Court, other elements of diversity are also important?geography, educational background, and life experiences. In those respects, the Supreme Court today is less diverse than it has ever been in its history, and it is the poorer for it.

As to geography, seven of the nine justices come from the eastern seaboard....

[In the mid-1950s o]ne justice came from each of the following states: Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Alabama, Texas, California, and Washington....

Six of the nine [current] justices are graduates of Harvard Law School. Rather than suggesting that this results from a search for quality, it suggests attention to too narrow a pool of prospects. It resembles the ?old boy network,? or an ?elitist? approach, especially combined, as it is, with an over-concentration on East Coasters....

[A]ll nine justices came to the Supreme Court from a U.S. court of appeals. In this respect, it is the least diverse Court since 1789...

[In the mid-1950s, there were] U. S. senators (one of whom had been a big-city mayor), a state governor, an attorney general, and a solicitor general....

More than three-fourths of this country lies beyond the Appalachians. We have 189 fully accredited law schools and more than a million lawyers. If only 1 percent were deemed qualified for the Supreme Court, that would provide a pool of some 10,000....

Yeah. Way too much New England, don't you think?

Full post as published by Althouse on March 31, 2009 (boomark / email).