FROM MY COLLEAGUE BEN BARTON: The Supreme Court Needs Diversity in More Ways Than One.
If President Biden makes good on his promise to nominate a black female justice, the Supreme Court will be more diverse than ever in terms of race and sex. But in another sense, the court has become increasingly homogeneous. Recent justices have come from remarkably similar backgrounds—and the president’s reported front-runner, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, would fit right in.
Judge Jackson grew up in a major metropolitan area, and her father was a lawyer. She would be the fifth sitting justice to fit that profile. She earned both her bachelor’s and law degrees at Harvard and would be the seventh justice with an Ivy League undergraduate degree and the eighth graduate of Harvard or Yale law school.
She clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer and would be the sixth justice to have served as a Supreme Court clerk. Two of her prospective colleagues, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, likewise succeeded the justices for whom they clerked. After clerking, Judge Jackson worked at an elite Washington law firm focusing on appellate litigation, as did five other current justices. She has served as a federal appellate judge, like every other justice but Elena Kagan, and would be the fourth justice from the District of Columbia Circuit. . . .
Studies consistently establish that more experientially diverse decision-making bodies tend to avoid groupthink, consider different and more innovative approaches, and then reach better decisions. Given that every justice is already a lawyer, it makes sense to try to diversify across other educational, geographic and experiential axes. This was the case historically, as Harvard graduates shared the bench with former politicians, law professors and even autodidacts with no formal education.
Yes, the Supreme Court should not be limited to the usual “judicial thoroughbreds.”
And I strongly recommend his new book, The Credentialed Court: Inside the Cloistered, Elite Supreme Court. He goes through the biography of every Supreme Court justice and argues — I think correctly — that in prior days the justices were not only more interesting people, but better judges.
Plus:
Mr. Biden may want to look closely at another name reportedly on his short list: Judge J. Michelle Childs. She’s a product of the Columbia, S.C., public school system who earned a scholarship to the University of South Florida and got her law degree at the University of South Carolina—both public institutions. She made partner at a Columbia law firm practicing labor and employment law and has worked in state government and served as a state and federal trial judge. Both she and Judge Jackson are highly qualified to serve on the court, but in terms of sheer diversity, Judge Childs has an advantage.
Childs is also championed by James Clyburn, who extracted Biden’s promist to appoint a black woman in exchange for his support in the Sourth Carolina primary.