The FOX Broadcasting Company has announced that it will add “Who Wants to Clerk for a Supreme Court Justice?” to its lineup this fall. The Supreme Court themed reality show, in which recent law school grads compete for the opportunity to spend a year clerking for Chief Justice John Roberts, will be broadcast at 10/9c each Thursday night, after “Hell’s Kitchen.”
Like similarly-themed reality shows such as “The Apprentice,” “Who Wants to Clerk” will feature sixteen recent law school graduates who compete in various challenges set forth by the Chief Justice of the United States or by a weekly “guest Justice.” To stir controversy among the candidates, exactly half will be members of the Federalist Society.
Although the conservative Chief Justice was initially reluctant to consider so many non-Federalist Society members as possible clerks, he warmed to the idea after discussions with FOX executives. “The network has assured me that they will select sixteen outstanding young lawyers to participate in this program.” Adding, “besides, after all that FOX did to help me get this job, I kinda owe them one.”
Many of the candidates’ weekly tasks will invoke some of the Justices’ well-known interests and hobbies. In one episode, guest Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg challenges two teams of candidates to compose an opera about gender discrimination in the workplace. Another episode asks the candidates to compete in the “Chief Justice William Rehnquist Memorial Tennis Classic,” and a third requires the candidates to survive on nothing but yogurt and apple cores at a cabin in New Hampshire.
At the conclusion of each episode, the candidates with gather in Chief Justice Roberts’ chambers to hear “The Judgment of the Court.” After recounting the day’s events and criticizing some of the poorer performing candidates, the Chief Justice will inform one candidate that his or her “petition for a writ of certiorari is denied.”
If the show performs well, FOX is already in talks with Ninth Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski to host a spinoff “Who Wants to Clerk for a Feeder Judge?”
After his nomination to the Supreme Court, I played in bit part in efforts to warn the nation that then-Judge Roberts may not be the charming moderate he claimed to be, but I’m always stunned at how willing the nation was to ignore obvious red flags that should have made him unconfirmable. Dahlia Lithwick reminds me of an incident from the Chief Justice’s past which had slipped my mind:
But let’s say 20-year-old footnotes and signing your name on a brief really do signify deeply felt ideological views. What did Senate Republicans do with then-nominee John Roberts’ 1984 memo defending legislation that would have stripped all school-busing cases from the courts—even when his superiors at the Justice Department thought the proposed bill went too far? Nothing. What did they read into his 1985 memo about nominating a government lawyer for an award program honoring women who changed professions after 30, in which he opined, “Some might question whether encouraging homemakers to become lawyers contributes to the common good, but I suppose that is for the judges to decide”? Nothing. Roberts’ Paleozoic views on women freaked out even Phyllis Schlafly, president of the Eagle Forum. But his GOP supporters dismissed these youthful foibles and celebrated him as “nonactivist.”
Really, Your Honor?
Overruled 