Academic

Other blogs love the announcement of a Supreme Court nominee, but we're sort of "whatever."  The Glom has been Glomming since November 2004, so we've seen four Supreme Court nominees and three confirmations.  Gordon and I tried to muster some fascination with the Miers nomination, but otherwise, the Glom has never been that political.  There are less than a handful of business law cases a year at the Supreme Court, so any business-y excitement about SCOTUS nominations is fairly manufactured.  (Note that the most famous "business law" case this year, Citizens United, is a first amendment case.)

So, if you are a Supreme Court junkie and you just can't stand it, here are the basic Elena Kagan topics going around the blogosphere.  This is not meant to be exhaustive, so if I missed your post, just add it in the comments.

Is Professor-turned-Dean Kagan a true scholar?  In case you think this is an important criteria for being on the Supreme Court, here's Eugene Volokh, Brian Leiter, Paul Campos, Mark Tushnet.  I understand reading what any nominee has written on legal topics to get a glimpse inside the legal mind, but I don't understand complaining about the quantity.  Next up, let's see her teaching evaluations.

Kagan is too-regulation oriented or at least not sensitive to concerns of private business sector.  Here's Nate Oman at Concurring Opinions.

Kagan once said that the confirmation process should have substantive questions with substantive answers, so let's see how hypocritical she is.  Here's Brandon Bartels at Co-Op, Paul Horwitz at Prawfs and Jonathan Adler at Volokh.  I also can't work up much indignation on this one.  I could go on the record saying that I think that law schools should value teaching much more than scholarship (or vice-versa), but I'm going to play the game the way it's played at my school.  So, we might all hope that if nominated for SCOTUS that we would be frank and speak our mind in front of the Senate when asked our views on abortion, campaign speech, same-sex marriage, gun rights/control, etc., but we might instead choose to walk a professorial line.

Kagan kicked the Military Recruiters out of the Harvard Temple over Don't Ask, Don't Tell.  Here is Ilya Somin at Volokh.  Being able to pick and choose recruiters to come on campus and offer jobs to your students sounds so pre-2008.

Is Kagan really liberal?  She loves the Federalist Society, but they aren't her people.  Here is Jim Lindgren with that story.

Is Kagan really liberal?  She hired a bunch of white male conservatives professors.  Elizabeth Nowicki here and Dan Markel here.  Four law professors write Salon column after writing letter to White House.

Goodness, now there will be 3 women on the Supreme Court.  Ann Althouse here.

Goodness, Kagan is single.  Mary Dudziak at Balkinization.

What will Justice Kagan say about same-sex marriage?  Ann Althouse here.

Is a justice a neutral umpire or an empathetic nexus of experience?  Dan Solove, Larry Solum and Dan Solove again.

This is boring already.  Howard Wasserstein and Larry Ribstein.