Supreme Court search highlights calls for educational diversity on the bench

Washington — Move over, Harvard and Yale. With Justice Stephen Breyer's retirement opening a vacancy on the Supreme Court, there's a new push for President Biden to push aside the Ivy League and give alumni of public universities a chance.

Mr. Biden is poised to nominate the first Black woman to the nation's highest court, and if the Senate confirms his pick, it would mark the first time two African-American justices were on the court at the same time. Four women would also be on the bench simultaneously. Now, some on Capitol Hill are also urging the president to bring some educational diversity to the Supreme Court with his pick. 

And with a bench filled with graduates of Harvard or Yale law schools — with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a graduate of University of Notre Dame Law School, the lone exception — the public-school pedigree of U.S. District Judge J. Michelle Childs is being heralded as a plus-factor for her candidacy.