JD Vance’s Yale Law School pedigree appeared at least a dozen times at the Republican National Convention. A degree from the institution gave the inexperienced Vance, the Republican vice presidential candidate, further legitimacy and validation of the Horatio Alger story.
The use of elite education credentials by populist critics of elite education is not new. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who went to Yale College and Harvard Law School, did a version of the same thing when he was running for president. Sen. Josh Hawley, whose fist rose on January 6, graduated from Yale Law in 2006. Rep. Elise Stefanik, who spent many years grilling college presidents on Capitol Hill, graduated from Harvard College. And former President Donald Trump himself likes to brag about his bachelor’s degree from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (although at that time, more than half of the applicants were accepted).
But Vance’s title is central to the narrative in a way that other politicians are not. Being admitted to Yale was the crowning achievement of writing his best-selling memoir, “Hillbilly Elegy.” It is cemented up into the elite. This makes Vance an effective resource for “explaining” bad white politics (and bad white dysfunction) to the NPR-listening, tote-bag, book-buying public. It is not too much to say that, without Yale Law School, there would be no JD Vance phenomenon – at least, at the age of 39.
Yale Law also played an important role in legal conservatism. On the Supreme Court, Justices Clarence Thomas (’74) and Samuel Alito (’75) have gone from being peripheral voices to authors of new conservative opinions that look set to last at least a generation. One of the reasons he is as influential as he is today is the appointment of Judge Brett Kavanaugh (Yale Law ’90). The court now has an unprecedented four Yale lawyers, including liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor (’79). Together they account for nearly half of the nine Yale Law School graduates who have ever sat on the court.
What is surprising about these figures is that there are quite a few conservative graduates of Yale Law School. A generation ago, Bill and Hillary Clinton, also Yale Law graduates, brought a full network of classmates and liberal friends to Washington. Such liberal Yale Law graduates are not hard to find — and remain prominent in various legal professions, especially as professors. (I went alone.)
Yale’s conservatives are something else. The law school is small, graduating only about 200 students each year, which means there are about 600 law students at a time. And while there is no official count, the number who identify as conservative is no more than 10% – and it could be even smaller. Consider: The photo on the homepage of the Yale Federalist Society chapter of only 20 students.
That peculiarity is certainly one of the reasons why Yale Law’s conservatives rose so quickly. Consider court clerkships. More than half of federal judges are conservative and seek clerks who will support their worldview. On the Supreme Court, the conservative-to-liberal ratio is 2 to 1. That gives conservative students a significant leg up, statistically.
What is important, however, is the experience of alienation shared by many Yale Law conservatives, which seems to validate their political views and is also a central part of the narrative. Thomas and Alito both talked about feeling like outsiders at Yale. It does not come from the upper or middle class. (Kavanaugh, in contrast, who grew up in the upper middle class, used to speak well of his social experience at Yale and remained a relatively moderate conservative.)
Vance, who grew up poor, also experienced a sense of alienation at Yale, which is emphasized in his book and has furthered his political career. For him, as for Thomas and Alito, Yale Law became the second component of self-perception and presentation. On the one hand, it has been proven that it is now a member of the elite. On the other hand, what appears to be the Yale elite affirms the belief that populist conservatism is the right way to see the world.
Vance benefited greatly from Yale, making connections that helped him find top-tier literary agents and launch his career in Silicon Valley. And part of the hope of providing this kind of lift to working-class students is that elite institutions like Yale believe in getting students from diverse backgrounds. I believe it myself.
But one result is the emergence of people who use elite experience to advocate anti-elitism. That’s right.
I will try to suggest, however, elite institutions can and should do better in what they see and try to minimize the alienation associated with any kind of outsider there – whether based on social class, race, religion or conservative politics. Some culture shock is inevitable if elite educational institutions attract the children of the economic and educational elite. But we can teach our students, from day one until graduation, to think harder about other people’s experiences, and take some moralizing out of meeting with people who think differently. Real-world effects can provide graduates who are wiser and less reactionary.
