Monday, April 29, 2013

Why Are Evangelicals Maybe Underrepresented Among the Legal Elite ?

Dan Crane over at the Center for Law and Religion looks at this Are Evangelicals Underrepresented Among the Legal Elite?

He defines Legal Elite as "
federal judges (Supreme Court and the most prestigious federal circuits); top legal jobs in the executive branch (Solicitor General’s office, White House counsel, etc.); law professors at top-ranked law schools; and various talent pools that feed into the upper echelon of legal jobs (i.e., student bodies at elite law schools; Supreme Court clerkships)."

I think he is correct to think that this is a pretty big problem. It is striking that sense the rise of the Evangelical in politics from the Christian right to the Jimmy Carter Democrats that they seem to have hit a roadblock here.

I strongly think this is because of what he points out is the limited Universe where the applicants come from. This is one reason why when ever there is a high profile SCOTUS or Federal Appeals Court confirmation hearing I wish Senators would push for a tad more diversity in Law Clerk hiring. That is beyond the Ivy League and a few other schools that have maintained their hold on the keys of the Kingdom.

The possible lack of Evangelicals in the legal elite points to a wider problem that I think has real world  consequences .

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