The New York Observer has a very interesting article about how the deanship of Elena Kagan has helped Harvard Law School become significantly more accepting of conservatives than it used to be. An excerpt:
“In Dean Kagan, Harvard has found somebody who genuinely values intellectual and viewpoint diversity,” said Mr. Berenson. “[Conservatives have] gone from feeling excluded to included.”
Ms. Kagan herself is reluctant to characterize her deanship as a break from Harvard’s past.
“My view of Harvard is that because we are a place that is larger in scale than a lot of other schools, we’ve never been a niche place,” Ms. Kagan told The Observer. “We sort of have everything, and that continues to be true in our current hiring. Our current hiring is all across the board from a political-slash-ideological perspective, and that’s exactly what it should be.”
But among current students, alumni and faculty, the difference between Harvard Law School today and in 1988 is palpable, even if among the school’s officials, the change is unspoken.
Thanks to my law school classmate Mark Yzaguirre for the link.
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