Make-Up of the US Supreme Court v. Law School Tuition

With the nomination and probable confirmation of Elena Kagan as the next U.S. Supreme Court justice, the make-up of the Court will be totally from Harvard or Yale, and another millionaire. While those two schools can and should be proud of that accomplishment, the remaining law schools in the country - especially those not in the Tier 1 list - should review their curriculum, their professors, and most importantly, their tuition.

To pay over $30K a year to attend a Tier 4 school is ridiculous, especially given the fact that there is almost no chance to ever succeed to the highest court in the land if you've attended such a school. Perhaps the tuition charged should be tied more closely to the ranking of the law school. There is little incentive for law schools to reduce tuition at this time. The number of lawyers is going to increase significantly, and many of these new lawyers will be shouldering a heavy financial burden without the benefit of the Tier 1 status or level of education, presumably.

It's time for a change - one that benefits the law school students and not the pockets of those running law schools, regardless of their rank.

Hypocrisy of High Court: Stevens and Comstock Rulings

Recently, the US Supreme Court held that the federal law against depiction of animal cruelty was an illegal infringement on First Amendment free speech rights, in effect ruling against animal welfare. United States v. Stevens. Study after study has indicated that many people who ultimately harm other humans start out abusing animals, and there are extremely strong analogies between depictions of animal cruelty and child pornography which the Court could - and should - have used as a guideline to uphold this law.

Even more recently, the Court just held that Congress had authority under the necessary and proper clause to enact laws allowing for indeterminable commitment of federal prisoners deemed dangerous, even after their prison release dates. United States v. Comstock.

The hypocrisy of these conflicting rulings which so brazenly belittles animals as well as sexual offenders to less than deserving either of protection against those who would hurt them or protection of basic civil rights, respectively, infuriates me. Animals are just as much or more deserving of protection than human children, and sexual offenders are still people whose rights should not be trampled upon just because of the nature of their crime. I'd much rather live next to a sex offender than I would a murderer, but you don't see murderers treated as badly as people convicted of sex crimes.