"When I began as a young lawyer in the 1960s, text was an interesting jumping-off point."

"It was sometimes even read from beginning to end. But it was rarely dispositive�. One of the great triumphs of Justice Scalia�s work on the Court over the years � with help from a number of the other justices � was to remind us that text does play an important role, and that we should be spending more time with the text."

Said NYU lawprof Burt Neuborne, talking about his new book, "Madison's Music: On Reading the First Amendment." Alongside him was Justice Sonia Sotomayor, whom he thanked for "her human voice." Is that a compliment? Is this a compliment: "It�s a fun book for someone who's not immersed in the law"? That's what she said about his book.

I got to that NYU page via email that promotes NYU School of Law things to the school's graduates (which include me). I hesitated to link to it, however, because I'm ashamed of the inaccuracy of this sentence:
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A proposed Women-of-the-Supreme-Court Lego set is rejected as a violation of Lego's policy against "politics and political symbols, campaigns, or movements"...

... which prompts NPR to delve into whether what the Supreme Court does is (or looks like) politics:

"I honestly understand having a policy in place like that," said [science journalist Maia Weinstock, who designed the set]. But Weinstock said she looked at the policy before submitting and didn't think that her project was political.

"The U.S. Supreme Court is supposed to be separate from political considerations," she said. "People are appointed for life specifically so that they don't answer to the changing whims of politics."

Of course, that's especially silly when you are celebrating the presence of women on the Court. They are there because Presidents appointed them, and it's obvious that the final selection from the pool of qualified candidates is political. Ronald Reagan had made it a campaign promise that he would appoint the first woman to the Supreme Court. And when has any President simply nominated the person with the best judicial mind or some such entirely neutral concept?
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