In this new Encounter Broadside, Glenn Harlan Reynolds (aka Instapundit) argues that “Front-Row Kids” have taken over the federal judiciary, rendering decisions that both reflect and reinforce the prejudices of their social class.

As Reynolds describes them, Front-Row Kids—the term is Chris Arnade’s—are the people “who did well in school, moved into managerial or financial or political jobs, and see themselves as the natural rulers of their fellow citizens.” By contrast, “Back-Row Kids” “placed less emphasis on school” and not surprisingly “resent the pretensions, and bossiness, of the Front-Row kids. Back-Row Kids are more plentiful, but Front-Row Kids are more powerful, as they’re the ones who for the most part lead America’s institutions, both private and public.

The Judiciary’s Class War is a short essay, so Reynold merely sketches the outline of an argument that needs to be made more fully elsewhere. Still, it is a suggestive argument. Given that, for example, all nine Supreme Court Justices hail from only three law schools—Harvard, Yale, and Columbia—perhaps it’s time that the court look a little more like America. Isn’t that what diversity is all about, after all?

Book Reviewed
Glenn Harlan Reynolds, The Judiciary’s Class War, Encounter Broadside No. 54 (New York, Encounter Books, 2018).

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