Scalia Says There Were Benefits To Excluding Women From Most Jobs

Xavier High School/Paul Morigi/Getty ImagesJustice Antonin Scalia is shown on the left, in his high school years.New York Magazine recently enlisted famous Big Apple natives to talk about growing up in the city, and it managed to get Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on board.

Scalia is known for making the occasional off-color remark, and his piece in New York Magazine describing his young life at P.S.13 in Elmhurst, Queens is no exception.

Here's what he says when describing a class picture:

"The teacher standing in the back—that was a lady named Consuela Goins, and she was a wonderful teacher. Every cloud has a silver lining, and one of the benefits of the exclusion of women from most professions was that we had wonderful teachers, especially the women who today would probably be CEOs."

In a single sentence, Scalia manages to imply that wonderful teachers are a thing of the past -- and that being a business leader automatically makes somebody an excellent teacher.

Scalia's vivid description of city life back then is fairly redeeming though.

"There were a lot of vacant lots around in those days in Queens and Elmhurst, and we used to have campfires and camped out, if you can imagine that, in pup tents," he writes.

"It was a wonderful place," he added. "You had the subway; the world was your oyster."