Conservative Praise for Elena Kagan

Writing at The New Republic, former Reagan administration solicitor general and longtime Harvard law professor Charles Fried sings the praises of Solicitor General Elena Kagan, the former Harvard law dean and presumptive front-runner to replace Justice John Paul Stevens on the Supreme Court:

I do not doubt that her heart beats on the left. After all, she clerked for Abner Mikva and Thurgood Marshall, two of the most liberal judges to sit on their respective courts, and she calls Marshall her legal hero. No, what it all tells us is that she came to Harvard Law School at a critical time in its history and determined that it was her job to make the biggest, richest, and most famous law school in the world also the best. And that she would do it by recruiting excellent teachers from across the ideological spectrum. That she would make students with every point of view feel as if they were part of an intellectual and professional enterprise. That the students and faculty should feel this was not just a place to come to work and an experience to be endured, but an enjoyable and satisfying part of a life that should be satisfying and enjoyable in its entirety. She saw that was her job; that was her role. She threw herself into it wholeheartedly. And she succeeded.