Diversifying the Federal Bench: Presidential Patterns

Summary

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In this study of all federal district court appointments from 1977 through 2004, we examine a variety of possible influences on the selection of women and minorities to the federal bench. We find that women and minorities are more likely to be appointed to relatively large courts and to courts that have relatively few female or minority judges. The pool of eligible candidates also has a substantial and significant influence on the likelihood that a minority judge will be appointed. We find that political factors such as state ideology or the partisan composition of the U.S Senate delegation from the state have little influence. We conclude that Residents take race and gender into consideration when making judicial appointments and are particularly interested in diversifying relatively homogeneous courts; moreover, large courts may offer an opportunity to diversify with relatively few trade-offs in representation of other groups or interests.

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Diversifying the Federal Bench: Presidential Patterns

The role of diversity in the federal judicial selection process has been debated durng each administration since that of President Carter. In his campaign, he pledged not only to recruit judicial candidates based on merit but also to diversify what was at the time an overwhelmingly white and male federal bench (Goldman, 1997). During the administration of George H. W. Bush, Thurgood Marshall acknowledged that race would almost certainly be a factor in the choice of his successor (Wines, 1991). During the 1992 presidential debates, Bill Clinton proclaimed his commitment to diversity and said that his cabinet and other appointments would "look like America." And certainly we have seen lively speculation about George W. Bush's potential Supreme Court appointments, focusing on the possible nominations of the first Latino justice in the person of Alberto Gonzales or the first black female justice in the person of Janice Brown.1

The notion that diversity is politically and substantively important is not new; historically, seats had been reserved for particular regions or religions (Baum, 1998; Scigliano, 1971), revealing that judicial appointments serve the political and policy goals of presidents. Yet despite the attention paid to the importance of racial, ethnic, and gender diversity, the numbers of women and minority judges continu...

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