From Akhil Amar's "Third Thoughts on Brett Kavanuagh":
On Sept. 24, no one else — so far as I know — was publicly proposing this precise procedural framework, but, as events actually unfolded in the following weeks, something remarkably similar to my proposed framework was in fact cobbled together and implemented, though critics have argued that the scope of the FBI’s post-hearing investigation was unduly narrow. Kavanaugh’s confirmation on Oct. 6 raises countless questions — the episode will spawn shelves of future books and articles. Today, I will address just one narrow issue of special local significance: Yale’s, and my own, complicated relationship to power.
Yale prides itself on its tradition of preparing future leaders. In his Yale College opening address on Aug. 25 — well before the Kavanaugh nomination boiled over and roiled the campus — President Peter Salovey proclaimed that “Our alumni are perhaps the greatest illustration of Yale’s tradition of service. Five Yale graduates have served as U.S. presidents, four as secretaries of state and eighteen as justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, representing viewpoints across the political spectrum. Yale alumni have served as heads of state of several foreign countries, including Italy, Mexico, Malawi and South Korea.”
In recent speeches at Yale reunions and Bulldog Days, I have publicized similar statistics. Four of America’s last five presidents, plus six of the last eight presidential runners-up, attended Harvard or Yale or both; the last presidential election without a Harvard or Yale grad in the final round was 1984 (1968, if one includes vice presidential candidates); and every justice on the current Court studied at either Harvard Law School or Yale Law School.
But in the wake of Kavanaugh’s nomination, critics have complained about the dark side of Yale’s and Yalies’ ambitions. Some complaints have aimed directly at me, after I published a July 9 op-ed in The New York Times touting Kavanaugh and simultaneously contributed to an official Yale Law School press release that seemed to celebrate his nomination. Wasn’t all this simply elitist cronyism, sycophantic ass-kissing and, or self-serving back-scratching? Does Yale, and do I, care only about access to power? Will Yale, will I, amorally celebrate any powerful alum, whether virtuous or vicious? In return for Yale’s, and my, support, are alums such as Kavanaugh expected to hire Yale’s, and my, favorite students as apprentices and law clerks, in a self-perpetuating intergenerational system of unjust privilege and hierarchy?