John Burford '12, former SAE pledge

The administration will consider over the summer banning fraternities and sororities outright from campus, President Shirley Tilghman said in an interview.

Tilghman said she was considering three options: 1) keeping the University’s current policy of non-recognition, 2) recognizing fraternities and sororities in the hopes of increasing regulation and University oversight, and 3) banning Greek life from Princeton outright.

“At the moment I am keeping an open mind about all options,” including retaining the University’s existing policy of non-recognition, Tilghman said in an e-mail to PAW. One way to ban Greek life, she said, would be to require matriculating students to pledge not to join fraternities or sororities, the same method used when fraternities were banned from Princeton between 1855 and World War II.

Tilghman’s comments came the week after John Burford ’12, a former Sigma Alpha Epsilon (SAE) pledge, described allegations of serious fraternity hazing in The Daily Princetonian’s article, a story that had been recorded for a fall journalism class and posted on The Weekly Blog at PAW Online in February.

While most fraternity and sorority alumni said they enjoyed their Greek life experience, some alumni now say they have their doubts. The founding president of Theta, Mim Stokes Brown ‘85, told the PAW: ”My personal feeling is that the school doesn’t need them. Between the eating clubs and residential colleges, it just seems unnecessary… I can’t think what value is added by having fraternities and sororities.”

Read the rest of the PAW exclusive here.

(image source: Princeton Alumni Weekly)

President Obama will nominate Solicitor General Elena Kagan ‘81 to the Supreme Court, NBC’s Pete Williams is reporting tonight. And the White House will officially announce the selection at a 11 AM event tomorrow (Monday), according to The Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder.

Kagan, who previously served as the dean of Harvard Law, will be the third consecutive Princetonian to be picked for the nation’s high court, joining Justices Samuel Alito ‘72 and Sonia Sotomayor ‘76 on the bench.

Princeton will be the most represented college on the Supreme Court, assuming Kagan is confirmed. Stanford is next with two alumni (Kennedy and Breyer) on the Court. Other colleges represented are Harvard (Roberts), Georgetown (Scalia), Holy Cross (Thomas), and Cornell (Ginsburg). Retiring Justice John Paul Stevens graduated from the University of Chicago.

Kagan would be the third Jewish Supreme Court justice if confirmed, leaving exactly zero Protestants on the bench (Stevens is the only one left). She would also be the first Solicitor General to be appointed to the Court since Thurgood Marshall (for whom she clerked after graduating from Harvard Law). Marshall’s nickname for Kagan? Shorty! (She’s less than 5′3″.)

And Kagan is the second member from the Class of 1981 who has become a superstar in American politics. The other alumnus: Eliot Spitzer ‘81. (We will refrain from making any prostitute jokes.)

Oddly, it might be liberals who will be more upset with Kagan, who has supported a more expansive view of executive power than many on the Left find palatable. Still, expect Republicans to mount a large effort against Kagan by arguing that she’s “radical” and too gay rights-friendly. In particular, they cite Kagan’s criticism of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy during her time as dean of Harvard Law as particularly troublesome:

I believe that policy is profoundly wrong — both unwise and unjust…and I look forward to the day when all our students, regardless of sexual orientation, will be able to serve and defend this country in the armed services.

Last year, the Senate voted to confirm Kagan 61-31, including seven Republicans, when she was nominated Solicitor General, so chances are she’ll be hanging with our girl Sonia (and maybe our homeboy Sam? Probably not…) when the Supreme Court begins its new term in October.

See our previous posts on Kagan here, here, and here.

And you can find our past coverage of Justice Sotomayor and her time at Princeton here, here, and here.

You should follow us on Twitter.

Click here.

You could use a distraction.

Stevens (left) and Brown are known ballers

IVY LEAGUE CHAMPIONS CHERYL STEVENS ‘10 and TANI BROWN ‘10 — CO-CAPTAINS of the BEST WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TEAM in PROGRAM HISTORY — SURF, SWAG, AND LIVE THE DREAM

Name: Cheryl Stevens / Tani Brown
Age: 22 / 21
Major: History / Religion
Hometown: Canyon Country, CA / Los Angeles, CA
Eating club/residential college/affiliation: Cottage, Mathey, Women’s Basketball Team / Cottage

Who’s your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
STEVENS: Carlton Banks. Most of my dance moves are inspired in some way or another by him.
BROWN: My girl Meesh, a.k.a. Michelle Obama.

What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton?
S: Frist pizza at 3:30 AM post-the Street is pretty hard to beat.
B: Every Wednesday at Cottage… Member’s Night baby! Steak and a chocolate fountain for dessert.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
S: Now that my thesis is in, I LIVE THE DREAM.
B: I surf and I swag.

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
S: Watching the history channel.
B: I could eat butter lovers microwave popcorn all day.

What’s the last student performance you saw?
S: Women’s Lacrosse vs. Dartmouth in a double overtime buzzer beater. It was awesome.
B: BAC Dance, I love watching Grace Cineas shake it.

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
S: Absolutely not.
B: I don’t know one word in Old Nassau… my bad.

The hand gestures to Old Nassau: creepy or awesome?
S: I don’t know them, but I can only imagine that they are creepily awesome.
B: Awesome?

What do you hate most about Princeton?
S: That it’s making me leave and forcing me into the real world. Oh, and grade deflation is pretty bad too.
B: When I wave at someone and they pretend like we didn’t just have a full semester of classes together. COME ON NOW PEOPLE

What’s your drink?
S: Anything with orange juice.
B: Hypnotiq, Alize, or anything Notorious B.I.G. would approve.

What’s hanging above your desk and/or bed?
S: A “thug life” chain and a love letter from senior football stud Jeff Jackson.
B: A picture of my team and a picture of my family.

Where do you do your best thinking?
S: Laying in bed.
B: When I go running.

When’s bedtime?
S: When the DJ goes off at Cottage.
B: When I feel myself getting ty ty

What do you think of Connor Diemand-Yauman?
S: I feel like his name is everywhere I turn. He seems to have done a great job.
B: He’s got a great smile, I’d date that.

What do you think of Dean Malkiel?
S: I don’t know enough about her to answer that.
B: Soo Dooopppppe.

Where is the best place on campus?
S: The Mathey courtyard, the backyard of Cottage, and East Pyne.
B: East Pyne

Where is the worst place on campus?
S: My carrel and/or Jadwin Gym on the day of the pre-season run test.
B: Anyplace where I have to study for over 10 hours.

Who is your mortal enemy?
S: Life is too short for enemies.
B: Four Loko Energy Drinks

When’s the last time you used cash?
S: To buy a coffee at Frist because I forgot my prox.
B: Last night to get Bent Spoon in Frist.

In 25 years, I will be…
S: Happy… and potentially running the world along with Tan of CheTan. If you don’t know, you probably should.
B: Hopefully happy and healthy.

Where do you go to study alone?
S: Firestone C-floor.
B: My room, a.k.a. the Boom Tomb.

What makes someone a Princetonian?
S: Bleeding orange and black.
B: They are good at what they love, and love what they do.

It's always a party in the Supreme Court lobby

Earlier this week, we gave you some helpful advice on what not to do if you plan on becoming a Supreme Court justice. But what sorts of things should you do as a Princeton student if you want a lifetime appointment to the nation’s high court?

An exhaustive (i.e. cursory, superficial, dumb) examination of the Princeton careers of both Justice Sonia Sotomayor ‘76 and leading contender (and Solicitor General) Elena Kagan ‘81 reveals some startling similarities between the two. (We, um, conveniently ignored Justice Samuel Alito ‘72 because he was just too different.)

Here are some important steps to take before you walk out of FitzRandolph Gate:

• Be a woman
  • Although if you’re unmarried, like Kagan and Sotomayor are, people will just assume you’re lonely and/or lesbian.
  • But seriously, there are only like two men on President Obama’s list of candidates, so make sure you’re a woman.

• Be from New York City
  • Kagan’s from the Upper West Side and graduated from Hunter College High School.
  • Sotomayor grew up in the South Bronx and was valedictorian of Cardinal Spellman High School.

• Major in History
  • Thank God Kagan switched from Woody Woo to History after three weeks, because then our “analysis” would be even more irrelevant.

• Write a long senior thesis (ugh, toolish!)
  • Kagan: 156 pages
  • Sotomayor: 178 pages

• Find a white male professor to be your thesis adviser
  • Professor Sean Wilentz was Kagan’s thesis adviser.
  • Sotomayor’s adviser was former Princeton professor Peter Winn.

• Win cool prizes
  • Kagan was a Sachs Scholar (studying at Oxford with future-WWS dean Anne-Marie Slaughter ‘80).
  • Sotomayor was a Pyne Prize winner.

• Be anything other than Protestant (retiring Justice John Paul Stevens is the lone one left on the bench)
  • Kagan is Jewish
  • Sotomayor is Roman Catholic

• Smoke lots of cigarettes
  • Okay, so we don’t know for sure whether Kagan and Sotomayor smoked while they were at Princeton, but…
  • …while Kagan was an editor of the Harvard Law Review, a classmate recalled:

    I remember wandering around Gannett House late at night and opening the door to the room at the very top of the building, and you’d just see Elena all by herself with a cigarette and a pen, editing late into the night.

  • …and Sotomayor was crazy about cigarettes as a young New York City prosecutor, smoking a pack and a half a day (!)
    • not to mention her insane caffeine addiction…

Click here for Part 1.

(image source: supremecourt.gov/about/photo3.aspx)

[from left to right: Kagan '81, Sotomayor '76, Alito '72, and Obama '85]

Do you plan on becoming a Supreme Court justice? Do you plan on becoming famous?

If so, do yourself a favor: Write your thesis on the most mundane, non-controversial topic possible.

Specifically, don’t write about:

• Scary foreign lands (i.e. Puerto Rico)
  • Last year, Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’76 got a lot of flack for some of the views she espoused in her thesis, La Historia Ciclica de Puerto Rico. The Impact of the Life of Luis Munoz Marin on the Political and Economic History of Puerto Rico, 1930-1975, which came in at a whopping 178 pages.
  • And if you think you’re out of the woods after getting your final thesis grade, think twice. The National Journal had another professor regrade Sotomayor’s thesis 33 years later! The professor’s conclusion?: “the thesis would probably receive an A/A minus or an A minus.”

• Scary topics Americans are scared of (i.e. socialism)
  • As we mentioned last week, Solicitor General (and leading Supreme Court nominee contender) Elena Kagan ‘81 is also getting criticized for her senior thesis, To the Final Conflict: Socialism in New York City, 1900-1933. The Weekly Standard stated last summer, “Her political sympathies (at the time) seem quite clear — and radical.” Uh oh!
  • No word yet whether anyone will regrade Kagan’s thesis, but then again, she hasn’t been nominated yet.

• Minority groups (i.e. Princeton-educated blacks)
  • And don’t you remember the media storm over the thesis First Lady Michelle Obama ‘85 wrote? (Full text here.) Her thesis, Princeton Educated Blacks and the Black Community, compared black Princetonians’ identification with the black community while at Princeton and afterwards as alumni.
  • While Obama’s thesis wasn’t regraded, some pundits criticized her writing anyway. Slate.com’s Christopher Hitchens wrote, “To describe it as hard to read would be a mistake; the thesis cannot be ‘read’ at all, in the strict sense of the verb. This is because it wasn’t written in any known language.” Ouch.

Seriously, after all the flack Obama ’85, Sotomayor ’76, and now Kagan ‘81 have received for their theses, it just doesn’t seem worth the trouble! So I implore you future-famous Princetonians: Write about really boring stuff.

Just look at the nomination (and confirmation) of Justice Samuel Alito ‘72. His thesis, An Introduction to the Italian Constitutional Court, was apparently sufficiently boring enough to preclude any media circus in 2005. Of course, there was that whole CAP (Concerned Alumni of Princeton) thing. So if you want to become a Supreme Court justice, try not to join any racist/sexist organizations, too.

Click here for Part 2.

(image source: princeton.edu; nytimes.com; dailyprincetonian.com)

source: poo-news.com

As our own David Walter declared last week, if it’s April, it’s, um, Excretory Month here on The Ink. But, really, we’re just reflecting what seems to be a campus-wide airing of excretory-related issues–it’s not just us!

Case in point:

• the Prince ran an editorial cartoon on the 14th about the cartoonist’s traumatic experience with a rogue 5 AM urinator
• and PrincetonFML’s poll last week asked the community “How do you wipe?”

I wanted to discuss the PrincetonFML “How do you wipe?” poll in particular because I was stunned (and horrified) by the apparent diversity of wiping methods out there. The poll is no longer up, sadly, but in case you missed it over 500(!) people responded to it. As of April 20th:

• a plurality (41%) answered “Crumpled, front to back”
• in close second (38%) was “Folded, front to back”
• 13% replied “Folded, back to front”
• and just 8% said “Crumpled, back to front”

For the past 22 years of my life, I believed in one supreme being (I think) and one butt-wiping method, but this poll caused me to question some of my core beliefs–who knew so many people wiped in so many different ways? The poll also seemed to spur wiping experimentation on campus, which, according to this PrincetonFML post, went terribly awry.

I’ll admit that I’m biased and prejudiced on this matter as I have my own preference, but was anyone else slightly horrified at the idea of butt-wiping “Crumpled, back to front”? Or rather, just “back to front” wiping in general? Wouldn’t such deeds–for both males and females–conceivably cause unspeakable havoc?

The authoritative-seeming HowToWipeYourButt.com (yes, it really exists) says the proper way is “from front to back.” So how do the 21% of Princeton folks who do the opposite explain themselves? (Seriously, I’d like to know.) Perhaps we can think of this post (and the comments section) as our own “Sustained Dialogue” on the sensitive, taboo subject of butt-wiping.

I know that I’ve recently had my own beliefs challenged on this issue. One friend informed me that he subscribes to the “back to front” school of wiping. When I questioned his ways, he retorted, “How is it horrifying if you are male?”

This gave me pause. Is it okay for men and women to wipe in different ways? Do the concerns of “back to front” butt-wiping not apply to men? Please. Let’s discuss this.

(N.B. This will be the last time I ever write about Excretory Month, rest assured!)

Although modeled after a "Florentine palace," Brown Hall was probably last desirable as a dorm in the 1890s, when this picture was taken.

There are a couple universal truths about Brown Hall:

1. It is a fiery tragedy waiting to happen. (There is ONE means of egress for the ENTIRE building! Can Fire Safety fine itself?)
2. It is a miserable, decrepit building that provides shelter for the lower caste of draw times and non-existent people who revel in early-20th century heating technology.

“But we’re centrally located!” sad Brown residents say to console themselves, “It’s like urban living–Princeton’s south-central L.A., if you will. We like not having modern facilities and not having a laundry room in our building.”

While Brown residents decided against disposing their waste in the toilet, they fortunately did not substitute house pets in its stead.

But in addition to their daily plight (and blight) that is Brown, its residents also faced a serious, pressing problem last semester–one that affected their everyday lives: people were having trouble determining the proper venue in which to take their number two business.

It was a problem so grave and urgent that it required direct intervention by then-USG President Connor Diemand-Yauman ‘10 (who happens to be one of the dorm’s DAs). In a series of emails to the entire dorm, CDY laid down the law…

(And yes, we know the first email is from last semester, but who among us doesn’t enjoy toilet humor?):

————————————————————

From: Connor Diemand-Yauman

Date: Mon, Sep 28, 2009 at 7:51 PM

Subject: READ THIS IF YOU LIVE IN BROWN!

Dear Brownites,

A few reminders about living in Brown:

• Please don’t shit in the trashcans or pee in the hallway. It might feel good when you’re doing it but you and others will most likely pay for it down the line (which is, strangely enough, a lesson learned from the story of my conception). If you do pee or poop somewhere other than a toilet, just let us know or slip an anonymous note under our door–it’s pretty shitty just to leave it there (da dum cha!).

• Please don’t leave rotting food or dirty dishes in the sink. The kitchen has been left trashed a couple times already, and if that happens, Erica [Greil '10] will be forced to close the kitchen (Note: Erica, not me. I’m the cool DA. Condoms anyone?). Also–after you use the stove, please be sure to turn it off. If you break the stove or can’t figure out how to turn the dial counter-clockwise (”I’m not an ambiturner…”), please let Erica or I know. You won’t be in trouble and we won’t make fun of you (to your face).

• Please turn the water off when you aren’t using it, such as when you’re brushing your teeth, flossing, bikini waxing, etc. It’s really unsustainable and obnoxious.

• Please bring garbage cans in your room when they don’t need to be emptied (unless you took a shit in them. If this is the case, please see bullet point 1).

• Please don’t smoke in the courtyard. This one sucks, and I’m actually guilty of breaking this rule with a fine group of guys and a really strong hookah about a week ago. But yeah, we can’t do that anymore and if we get caught Psafety can write us up. If you do do it, don’t get caught.

Here are some important numbers/addresses that you can use in case something happens to your room. These are the contacts that we use, so if you would rather solve your problems in a less circuitous way, you should feel free to contact them directly:

Psafety: 16092581000

Facilities: 16092588000
website: http://www.princeton.edu/facilities/
service request form: http://www.princeton.edu/facilities/info/request/

McCosh: 16092583129
email: uhs@princeton.edu

OIT 24 hour help desk: 16092584357
OIT knowledge base online database: http://oitweb.princeton.edu/

Here’s to a poop-free Princeton,

-Connor DY

After the September 2009 episode, Brown residents returned to their old habits last month:

————————————————————

From: Connor Diemand-Yauman

Date: Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 3:27 PM

Subject: 3rd floor bathroom

Dear men on the 3rd floor,

I don’t know what happened in the 3rd floor bathroom, but if you are going to poop/vomit/throw soup (that smells like poop) on the walls and toilet, at least have the decency to clean it up.

We’re all supposed to be adults. Leaving the bathroom in that state for the Brown cleaning staff to clean up is inconsiderate and disrespectful.

Next time you drink too much or feel like spraying a crap everywhere, please think about Robert, our janitor, on his hands and knees cleaning it up.

Connor

CDY. Taking care of business. That is, other people’s number two business.

(image source: http://etcweb.princeton.edu/scripts/bldgslide.pl?id=315 and Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License)

This is Martin, ICC President

THOUGHTS of CHEESE and BATHING CONSUME NEW INTERCLUB COUNCIL PRESIDENT MARTIN SCHEELER ‘11

Name: Martin Scheeler
Age: 21
Major: Physics
Hometown: Summit, NJ
Eating club/residential college/affiliation: Tower

Who’s your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Jack Donaghy: ideas man, silver fox.

What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton?
As much as it may resemble a drug front, Carousel makes some mean cheese fries.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
I spend most of the day thinking about when I’m going to be able to shower, and then I shower.

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Cheese. Like, seriously, I’m all about cheese.

What’s the last student performance you saw?
Company, directed by Dave Holtz ’10.

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
No. I’m not allowed to sing.

The hand gestures to Old Nassau: creepy or awesome?
Oh, super creepy for sure.

What do you hate most about Princeton?
You know when you’re sitting somewhere doing work, and you smell/hear someone eating a full meal or something in the same room, but the room is decidedly a non-food room? THAT. That is the worst.

What’s your drink?
What’s yours, baby?

What’s hanging above your desk and/or bed?
Okay, kind of weird, but run with me on this one: The only things I have on the walls of my otherwise monastic cell of a bedroom are cartoons drawn with sharpie over old newspaper cutouts (I swear I’m otherwise real normal). The one by my desk (drawn by Justine Chaney ’10) is of a monster sneaking up on an unsuspecting boy, who’s whistling as he walks with a bindle over his shoulder. Weird, I know, but they’re really well drawn.

Where do you do your best thinking?
Walking around campus. Something about taking a walk helps get me out of a rut if I’m stuck in one.

When’s bedtime?
When my code starts working.

What do you think of Connor Diemand-Yauman ‘10?
The boy’s got a nice set of teeth.

What do you think of Dean Malkiel?
I’ve never met the woman, but she seems like she’d be good in a fight.

Where is the best place on campus?
My bed, especially when it’s cold outside.

Where is the worst place on campus?
Anywhere in Jadwin Hall. Literally, anywhere.

Who is your mortal enemy?
Malia Obama.

When’s the last time you used cash?
I owed someone 40 dollars.

In 25 years, I will be…
Walking my dog in Portland.

Where do you go to study alone?
Fine Library, where happiness and joy go to die.

What makes someone a Princetonian?
Thick skin and sharp wit.

(inspired by NYMag.com’s Daily Intel blog)

source: law.harvard.edu

On Sunday, we mentioned that Solicitor General Elena Kagan ’81 is on President Obama’s shortlist of candidates under consideration to fill retiring Justice John Paul Stevens’ seat on the Supreme Court.

But, really, if chatter among the punditry is any indication, she’s the woman to beat. (After all, everyone thought Obama would choose Sonia Sotomayor ’76 after Justice David Souter retired, and Obama did just that.)

Kagan was on the shortlist last year when fellow Princetonian Sotomayor was ultimately chosen, and now with another court vacancy, SCOTUSblog has declared Kagan “the prohibitive front-runner.” In March, CNN and New Yorker legal correspondent Jeffrey Toobin told NPR, “I think it’s going to be Elena Kagan…” Conservative Bill Kristol also thinks it’ll be her and even told Fox News, “I endorse Elena Kagan.” Senator Lindsay Graham (R-SC) added onto the praise heap saying, succinctly, “I like her.”

So much love! But such bipartisan praise for the first female Solicitor General has made liberals suspicious and has failed to assuage emboldened conservatives who are painting Kagan as a radical. In fact, the paranoia among both liberals and conservatives is pretty striking. Consider the following:

• Last May, the conservative Weekly Standard pointed to Kagan’s 156-page senior thesis as evidence of a radical agenda (she wrote about socialism in New York City at the start of the 20th century)–a claim that her thesis adviser, Professor Sean Wilentz, later denied in an interview with Salon. The Weekly Standard was also spooked by an op-ed she’d written in the Prince, in which Kagan lamented about the conservative revolution in light of President Ronald Reagan’s 1980 election. Further, because Kagan has never been a judge, her lack of an extensive paper trail has raised eyebrows: “What little we know about her positions are distinctly out of the mainstream,” the chief counsel of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network told Bloomberg News.

• Meanwhile, many liberals have been up in arms about Kagan as well. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald writes that appointing Kagan to the Supreme Court would “move it further to the Right.” In particular, he says Kagan’s views are “closer to the Bush/Cheney vision of Government and the Thomas/Scalia approach to executive power and law.” Greenwald says that he fears Kagan could become the Democrats’ Justice David Souter–a George H.W. Bush-appointee who turned out to be a reliable liberal vote.

The liberal American Prospect’s Scott Lemieux also sounded the alarm, writing:

Presumptive front-runner Elena Kagan, while an attractive candidate in some respects, has a record on civil liberties and executive power that strongly suggests she would not be a liberal…

Specifically, as the conservative National Review notes, Kagan has been a strong advocate of the “state secrets” doctrine to preserve the NSA’s Bush-era surveillance program. She’s also suspected of being involved in the Obama administration’s decision to continue Bush’s policy of using military commissions (instead of civilian courts) for trying detainees, as well as the administration’s refusal to release photos of alleged prisoner abuse.

Liberals argue that Obama should appoint an assertive liberal in Stevens’ mold, pointing out that Stevens’ seat has been held by just three people so far–all of them liberal lions of the Court: Justice Louis Brandeis, Justice William O. Douglas, and Stevens. As one person told the New York Times last May,

Why they would put someone in who might not be a liberal anchor for the court is really bothersome, and I don’t see Kagan playing that role.

Adding ammunition to liberals’ concerns, the same article quoted Kagan’s former colleague in the Clinton administration who said,

There were some important issues on which Elena took centrist or even center-right positions, but it was never clear whether she was pressing her own views or merely carrying water for her boss on the Domestic Policy Council, Bruce Reed ['82].

While Kagan’s views on Executive Branch powers may give liberals heartburn, her record on social issues may help temper their fears. As dean of Harvard Law School, Kagan was a passionate critic of the 1996 Solomon Amendment, a law permitting the government to cut off federal funding for universities that prohibit military recruitment. Citing the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy banning openly gay and lesbians from serving, Harvard Law had banned recruiters from its campus.

Kagan signed onto an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case Rumsfeld v. Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights (2006), which argued that the Solomon Amendment restricted a university’s free speech. In an 8-0 decision, however, the Supreme Court rejected the claim. In the decision’s aftermath, Kagan wrote to the school:

I believe that policy is profoundly wrong — both unwise and unjust…and I look forward to the day when all our students, regardless of sexual orientation, will be able to serve and defend this country in the armed services.

But despite such displays, it’s unclear they’re enough to convince some liberals that Kagan deserves a spot on the Supreme Court. Regardless, here at The Ink, we’re partial towards Kagan–but mostly because she’d be the third consecutive Princetonian appointed to the high court.