Ivy covers the highest court

Diversity of opinion is a great thing. But if Elena Kagan is confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court, all of that body's opinions will come from justices educated in the Ivy League. Specifically, Harvard and Yale. According to Timothy O'Neill, a professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago, an Ivy League diploma has become shorthand for: This person is objective and scientific and will come to the single best decision unswayed by personal bias. "The Harvard and Yale pedigree became a way to defuse the ideological split," he says. "We know how powerful the court is — now we have to pretend it exists above ideology. We have to get nine vestal virgins from Harvard or Yale. Brains trump ideology."

Justices by the numbers

Breakdown of U.S. Supreme Court justices since 1960:

28: number of justices since 1960.

18: Justices that went to Ivy League schools (11 Harvard, 6 Yale, 2 Princeton, 2 Columbia, 1 Penn, 1 Cornell).*

10: Justices that did not attend Ivy League schools.

* Some justices attended more than one Ivy League school.

Source: The Supreme Court Compendium

Another anomaly should Kagan be confirmed: The Supreme Court would have three women, all from New York City, but different boroughs. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, left, is from Brooklyn, and Sonia Sotomayor is from the Bronx. Kagan grew up in Manhattan.