'We are proud of her' (SMU on Harriet Miers)

The Dallas Morning News ^ | October 28, 2005 | Kimberly Durnan

[monkapotamus]

'We are proud of her'

07:26 AM CDT on Friday, October 28, 2005

By KIMBERLY DURNAN / DallasNews.com

Putting their political leanings and ideologies aside, students and professors at Southern Methodist University had taken pride in the idea that one of their own might become one of the most important judicial decision-makers in the nation.

On Thursday, their hearts were heavy as news spread that the woman who had attended SMU as an undergraduate and law student had pulled out of the contentious battle for a spot on the U.S. Supreme Court.

*snip*

Joseph F. Kobylka, an associate professor in the political science department, said he didn't believe that Miers' withdrawal was a comment on SMU's worthiness.

"This is an indictment about an administration that didn't get its ducks in a row," he said.

"They didn't think this out carefully, didn't get people they needed on board, never had control of the nomination and weren't ready for the pitfalls that manifested immediately,"

[peyton randolph]

I'll be extremely surprised if SMU doesn't land W's presidential library.

[monkapotamus]

"Noting that SMU's law school was ranked No. 52 by US News and World Report, Ann Coulter wrote: "... if we're looking for lawyers with giant brains to memorize obscure legal cases and to compose clearly reasoned opinions ... I think we want the nerd from an elite law school."

---

"Linda S. Eads, associate professor of law and a former assistant attorney general who represented the Lottery Commission when Miers headed it, said she considered the questions about Miers' qualifications a "smokescreen."

"She didn't have a stated judicial philosophy so she was unacceptable to the right wing of the Republican Party," Eads said. "A judge shouldn't have a driven judicial philosophy. The world is a complicated place. We need judges who can think through problems and not have answers before they even reach the bench."

[monkapotamus]

"I'll be extremely surprised if SMU doesn't land W's presidential library."

I would be surprised also.

[peyton randolph]

I'd be ashaed if I were SMU.

Miers should not have been nominated for the Supremes. However, SMU is not the culprit here.

Other than 1L mandatory classes (including Con Law), law students choose the bulk of their courses based on the career that they want. Someone, like Miers, who is focused on business will not spend all their time studying emanating constitutional penumbras or the lack thereof.

SMU is consistently ranked in the top 1/3 of all ABA accredited law schools. It would be ranked higher if it was located on the East Coast...rankings are biased heavily to the East in general and the Northeast in particular.

I have two law degrees. My J.D. is from SMU. My LL.M. is from one of those elite schools on the East Coast that happened to be ranked # 1 in the country for that program. Of the two schools, I found SMU to have provided a better legal education.

To reiterate, it isn't the school. It is what the lawyer studied in that school and his subsequent practical experience that matters. Alice M. Batchelder of the Sixth Circuit has consistently been considered on the short list for the Supreme Court. Judge Batchelder attended the Univ. of Akron Law School...a school that is generally considered to be near the bottom of the barrel...and isn't even ranked in the top 100 law schools by U.S. News & World Report.

[peyton randolph]

Linda S. Eads

I had Eads as my Evidence prof. She knew the material but was a ball-busting feminist. Then again, most law school profs are liberals, leftists, and worse. The Republicans are usually adjunct profs who work full-time at a firm and teach a single course each semester.

[dangus]

The fact that SMU is OTHERWISE known as an excellent school is precisely WHY I would think SMU would be ashamed of having turned out a student like Harriet Miers. But it's a poor defense of a law program to say, "o well, she maybe just took the wrong courses."

[dangus]

I've seen Olson, Sutton and others argue cases before the Supreme Court. It is literally awesome to witness such intelligent men. Ann Coulter is also a fantastically smart lawyer. (I saw her at a conference for Congressional staffers in the Longworth HOB.) (I guess I'm a political nerd when I crash conferences for congressional staffers, eh?) I could picture her on the bench, if she didn't have such a mouth on her. (But I'm glad she does.)

[peyton randolph]

But it's a poor defense of a law program to say, "o well, she maybe just took the wrong courses."

The law is so specialized that one has to focus on the courses relevant to the type of practice that one wants to do after leaving school. Miers focused on business. Others focus on criminal law, family law, etc. She took the right courses for the type of practice she has done.

Her mistake was accepting the nomination. Nothing more.

[Steve_Stifler]

"The fact that SMU is OTHERWISE known as an excellent school is precisely WHY I would think SMU would be ashamed of having turned out a student like Harriet Miers."

I didn't support Miers for the Supreme Court, but it's wrong-headed and nasty comments like yours that work to divide conservatives.

SMU has nothing to be ashamed of and neither does Miers. Miers has had an incredible "working" lawyers career with plenty of firsts of which to be proud. Unfortunately in my opinion, her career choices didn't involve (or require) enough serious thinking about the role of the courts and the Constitution in modern society to be the type of intellectual conservative firebrand the Court desperately needs.

[governsleastgovernsbest]

[The Bush administration wasn't] ready for the pitfalls that manifested immediately."

Right. "Pitfalls." Such as Miers' blatant lack of the necessary intellectual skills. How could the administration have been "ready" for that, other than by not having made the nomination in the first place?

[monkapotamus]

http://www.smudailycampus.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/10/28/4361b1547acd5

Students speak to senator about Miers withdrawl

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison told SMU students Thursday she was disappointed that Harriet Miers withdrew her name as a U.S. Supreme Court nominee.

“I am furious. I am frustrated. I am disappointed,” she said.

*snip*

Hutchison defended Miers’ record, even though opponents criticized her qualifications.

“She is a remarkable woman,” she said, noting that Miers was the first female president of the Dallas Bar Association, the first female President of the Texas Bar Association and the first woman to head a major Dallas law firm.

“She broke some many barriers, and people talked like she was mediocre,” Hutchinson said.