WASHINGTON (AP) — Chief Justice John Roberts will soon lose his majority on the Supreme Court. With Judge Brett Kavanaugh nominated to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, Harvard Law’s 5-3 advantage over Yale could become a 4-4 tie.

The justices’ all-Ivy background — Ruth Bader Ginsburg has a law degree from Columbia — is just one way Kavanaugh should feel right at home if confirmed to the Supreme Court.

Presidents of both major parties have been choosing nominees of similar professional and educational experience for decades because the stakes have risen so high in filling Supreme Court vacancies. Neither side wants to risk a surprise in such a highly polarized political environment by picking a justice who turns out not to vote as expected.

“With virtually guaranteed opposition from across the aisle, presidents are pushed to nominate individuals with cookie-cutter ‘elite’ qualifications and extensive federal appellate experience. This is unfortunate,” Jonathan Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law in Cleveland, wrote in an email. “It wasn’t that long ago when it was common for presidents to nominate judges with no prior federal court experience or judicial experience at all.”

For the court’s first 178 years, all the justices were white men. That changed when Thurgood Marshall joined the court. Fourteen years later, Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to serve as a justice.

By sex, race and ethnicity, the court is more diverse than ever. White men have a bare majority on the nine-justice court. There are three women — one of whom is Latina — and an African-American, Justice Clarence Thomas.