Like so many other Brandeis students, this university was not my first-choice college. I am an Ivy League reject. However, my rejection from Columbia University has not left my ego too scarred, and I wouldn't dream of transferring out of our beloved university. All this being said, however, I still admit to harboring feelings of both jealousy and resentment for those who have been privileged to get the elite education that the Ivy League schools offer.

It is with that feeling of resentment that I, along with many others in the country, greeted the news of President Obama's appointment of Elena Kagan to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Should Kagan be confirmed-as she likely will be in the heavily Democratic Senate-every justice on the nation's highest court would be a graduate of an Ivy League law school.

Why, I thought, should the Supreme Court be composed of nine individuals who are totally unrepresentative of the country as a whole? Why should the graduates of only three law schools-Yale, Harvard and Columbia-be the ultimate interpreters of the United States Constitution? Why is a graduate of Harvard any more qualified for that job that a graduate of any other law school?

And then I realized how silly I was being. Yale, Harvard and Columbia are the first-, second-, and fourth-ranked law schools in the country, respectively, according to the U.S. News and World Report Graduate School Rankings. They are the most selective schools with the strongest reputations and the most intensive academic programs. Simply being admitted to Harvard or Yale Law School is already a pretty good indication that someone is a gifted student, and graduating is, of course, an even greater accomplishment.

My point is that I want the nine people who are tasked with interpreting the Constitution to be the greatest legal minds in the country. I want them to have been admitted to the most selective schools in the country. I want them to have the best legal training this country can offer.

I often feel that there is a latent anti-intellectualism in America.

Politicians are criticized for having degrees from elite universities, and many Americans can't get enough of "down-to-earth" public figures like Sarah Palin or Scott Brown. And there is nothing wrong with this when it comes to politics. In a healthy democracy, politicians represent the people. Thus, it is inappropriate for an elite group of Ivy League-educated individuals from the Northeast to dominate the halls of Congress or the Presidency.

But the Supreme Court is not a super-legislature; its job is not to represent the people. The Supreme Court is tasked with interpreting and applying the constitution of this country, and that should not require geographic, intellectual or educational diversity. It should require unmatchable legal training.

Some may still argue that an Ivy League-dominated Supreme Court is more likely to be left-leaning. Ivy League institutions are infamous for having a left-wing bias, and in the rest of the country outside Brandeis, this is seen as the cause of an alleged left-wing bias in the Court. However, the four conservative justices on the Court are all graduates of Harvard and Yale Law Schools. The current outgoing justice, John Paul Stevens, a graduate of Northwestern University Law School, was known to be the liberal anchor of the Court, and Harvard graduate Kagan's appointment likely will not change the left-right composition of the Court.

In fact, it seems that the all-Ivy League Supreme Court may shape up to be one of the most right-leaning Courts of the past century.

I do not mean to imply that there are not stellar law schools in the country that aren't part of the Ivy League. Nor do I mean to imply that one cannot get a phenomenal legal education anywhere but Harvard or Yale.

The message that I do wish to convey, though, is that the most important and influential legal body in the United States of America ought to be composed of those who excelled intellectually at the best law schools in the country. That is why I will feel safe, happy and proud should my Supreme Court be made up entirely of Ivy League graduates.