{"id":1160,"date":"2010-05-11T16:14:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-11T16:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/11\/bring-on-all-perspectives"},"modified":"2010-05-11T16:14:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-11T16:14:00","slug":"bring-on-all-perspectives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=1160","title":{"rendered":"Bring on all perspectives"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>Of all the things that commend Elena Kagan to a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court, one issue stands out for me: her penchant for seeking a diversity of opinion.<\/p>\n<p>Kagan&#8217;s tenure as dean of the Harvard Law School included an initiative to bring in more conservative faculty members. Her idea was that that Harvard was becoming too much of a liberal echo chamber, with too much sameness among faculty members. So, she recruited professors with a different point of view on legal matters.<\/p>\n<p>This has drawn howls from the left, who think that President Obama has selected a closet conservative to sit on the highest court in the land.<\/p>\n<p>No, the president has chosen someone who relishes good debate, intellectual stimulation and a wide range of thought.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m baffled as to why such a thing is seen by some as a negative. It should instead be seen as a compelling reason to confirm her.<\/p>\n<p>She&#8217;ll get pummeled by those on the right for a number of issues: lack of judicial experience, her career in academia, whatever. Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, has sent a strong signal of skepticism about Kagan over her lack of bench experience. Perhaps that criticism might be moderated somewhat if he considers her intent to bring more right-leaners onto the Harvard faculty.<\/p>\n<p>The issue here isn&#8217;t that she sought more conservatives. The issue actually is that she honors the tradition at a fine university as a place where all views are welcome. Universities should be places that give all perspectives a thorough airing.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of all the things that commend Elena Kagan to a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court, one issue stands out for me: her penchant for seeking a diversity of opinion. Kagan&#8217;s tenure as dean of the Harvard Law School included an initiative to bring in more conservative faculty members. Her idea was that that Harvard &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=1160\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Bring on all perspectives<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1160\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}