| The short list to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court includes one name with a close Texas connection: Judge Diane Wood of the federal court of appeals seventh circuit in Chicago. A New Jersey native, Wood moved to Houston during high school and went on to become Westchester High School's valedictorian. She later moved on to Austin, where she would complete both her undergraduate and law degrees at the University of Texas. The Statesman had a story about her and, as you might expect, her former colleagues, professors and classmates describe someone who would appear to be a good fit for the nation's highest court. "She was a terrific student, not only bright but cooperative and modest," recalled David Anderson, a UT law professor who taught Wood. "Some bright students are full of their brightness. She was not like that at all — she was very down to earth."
Of course, it is her Chicago connection that may help her in this particular instance. Wood became the third woman to ever teach at the University of Chicago Law School. Ten years later she was joined on the faculty by a recent Harvard Law graduate named Barack Obama. Perhaps in part due to their past, Wood was the first person President Obama interviewed last year for the vacancy caused by the retirement of Justice David Souter. No one, aside from the President and his closest advisors, really knows where Diane Wood stands on the list. However, on a court filled with justices who learned the law in Cambridge and New Haven, it would be something of a change (and perhaps add a different perspective) to have a Supreme Court Justice who was educated in Austin, Texas. |
