Law School rankings have been drawing a lot of flack lately, not to mention a few lawsuits. So what does someone like Justice Clarence Thomas think of the US News & World Report list? Not much, actually, as the WSJ Law Blog reports. WSJ Law Blog:

Law School rankings have been drawing a lot of flack lately, not to mention a few lawsuits. So what does someone like Justice Clarence Thomas think of the US News & World Report list? Not much, actually, as the WSJ Law Blog reports. WSJ Law Blog:

Law School rankings have been drawing a lot of flack lately, not to mention a few lawsuits. So what does someone like Justice Clarence Thomas think of the US News & World Report list? Not much, actually, as the WSJ Law Blog reports.

WSJ Law Blog:

Law school graduates aren’t the only ones saying less emphasis should be placed on law school rankings. Justice Clarence Thomas went on record Friday criticizing the popular U.S. News & World Report list.

During a chat at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law, Justice Thomas compared the bias against lower-tiered schools to discrimination against women and minorities, the Associated Press reported. He said he believes the individual is what’s important, not the school that issued the degree.

“Isn’t that the antithesis of what this country is supposed to be about? Isn’t that the bias that we fought about on racial terms, or on terms of sex, or on terms of religion, etc.?” Justice Thomas said. “My new bias — which I now embrace — is that I don’t eliminate the Ivies in hiring, but I intentionally prefer kids from regular backgrounds and regular students.”

Justice Thomas, in discussing getting the call from President George H.W. Bush to serve on the Supreme Court, empathized with graduates in a tough job market. He said he faced a tough job market too when he graduated from Yale Law School, and took the only offer available to him, as an assistant attorney general in Missouri. He said his classmates laughed about it, but it was the career path that brought him to the Supreme Court.

Of his appointment by President Bush, he said “I hoped and prayed it would not happen. When the president calls, there’s only one answer: ‘Yes, Mr. President.’”

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