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Dear W.I.D.-- You make some interesting points here about the extent to which the Supreme Court does not reflect the diversity of religious and socio-economic experiences of the American people. I'm not in favor a rigid representation statistically, but as you point out the stats seem greatly out of proportion. And, on the Federalist Society front, that is another way and a far more telling way that the Court's membership has been distorted by interest groups than religious affiliation. After all, one's religion does not necessarily dictate one's view on policy issues as there are Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Greens and others who are Jewish or Catholic or Christian or hale from other religions or none. But there are no Democrats or Greens that are Federalist Society members (although some have been invited to participate in Fed-Soc "debates"), or almost none. The Federalist Society membership demonstrates an ideological commitment to moving the law in a particular direction on a range of legal policy issues, even though the feudalists (and I mean that term as a better description than "federalists") claim not to have particular positions. They are really the "true believers" of a set of tenets that endorse an expansive view of executive power and corporate power and oppose liberties and protections for ordinary people in general, although sometimes their corporatist policy preferences also benefit some individuals incidentally. Their positions, or what might be called the focus of their intellectual energies, are outside of the mainstream. When I was working for the Senate Judiciary Committee, over half of President George W. Bush's appellate nominees were associated with the Federalist Society, which was said to be helping select candidates for the bench for G.W.... And, as for Harvard and Yale, as a Cornell Law grad I suppose it might sound like sour grapes for me to complain about the domination of these schools in judicial selection. I do think the federal bench would benefit from greater diversity of experience, including educational diversity and the economic diversity that sometimes reflects. At the same time, it is plain to me that growing up poor does not necessarily make someone compassionate for the plight of those less fortunate, as Clarence Thomas demonstrates in almost every opinion he writes. That is, none of these attributes (religion, education, economic background) are adequate proxies for wisdom, fairness, and compassion. Thank you for writing in! Lisa