When Women Rule, It Makes a Difference / Kathleen Sullivan for SCOTUS
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050103406.html
When Women Rule, It Makes a Difference
By Christina L. Boyd and Lee Epstein
Sunday, May 3, 2009
When Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, national polls suggested that the public overwhelmingly supported replacing her with a female juror. O'Connor seemed to agree. "He's good in every way, except he's not a woman" is what she had to say about the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr.
Now, Justice David H. Souter is set to retire from the court, and President Obama is already facing similar pressure. Who might take Souter's place? We're already being introduced to Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Pamela Karlan -- all very accomplished individuals who happen to possess the one qualification that many commentators and court-watchers seem to agree is the most important this time around: They are women.
Some of the pressure comes from those who believe that the membership of our courts should reflect the makeup of our society. More than half the U.S. population is female. Nearly one-third of all U.S. lawyers are women. Approximately 30 percent of the judges serving on the lower federal courts are women.
But a diverse Supreme Court isn't just about a bench that looks like America. This is about jurisprudence, too. In research that we conducted with our colleague Andrew D. Martin, we studied the votes of federal court of appeals judges in many areas of the law, from environmental cases to capital punishment and sex discrimination. For the most part, we found no difference in the voting patterns of male and female judges, except when it comes to sex discrimination cases. There, we found that female judges are approximately 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party bringing the discrimination claim. We also found that the presence of a female judge causes male judges to vote differently. When male and female judges serve together to decide a sex discrimination case, the male judges are nearly 15 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party alleging discrimination than when they sit with male judges only.
This holds true even after we account for judges' ideological leanings. If Obama is considering two fairly moderate people, one a woman and the other a man, we would expect the woman to cast more liberal votes in sex discrimination cases. The same would be true if the president were considering two very liberal candidates, again, one a man and one a woman.
The retirement of the liberal-leaning Souter may not give the president a chance to move the court significantly to the left. But it does let him make a different shift. If he does choose a woman to fill Souter's seat, he could have a major impact on an area of law that's important to many Americans -- women and men alike.
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Got this on Facebook:
NATION-WIDE Campaign: Kathleen Sullivan for Supreme Court Justice!
Sullivan is incredible qualified and would bring a lot of diversity to the bench.
Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the current court term after 19 years on the bench. The vacancy will give President Obama his first chance to name a member of the high court and begin to shape its future direction. We are urging the consideration and appointment of Kathleen Sullivan.
Kathleen Sullivan is hands down one of the most qualified candidates. She is a Marshall scholar and former Stanford Law dean whom constitutional law legend Laurence Tribe once called “the most extraordinary student I had ever had.” She is the author of the nation’s leading casebook in constitutional law, has litigated before the Supreme Court, and has been named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal. Sullivan was also a professor of law at Harvard Law School from 1984 until 1993. She joined Stanford Law School in 1993 and became the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law in 1996. Sullivan then served as the dean of Stanford Law School from 1999 until 2004, when she voluntarily stepped down to serve as the inaugural director of a new Stanford center on constitutional law. Since 2004, she has been the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.
In addition to this impressive list of qualifications, Sullivan is also a woman and openly gay which would bring some much needed diversity to the Supreme Court.
If chosen, Sullivan would become the first ever openly gay Justice and third female Justice in United States history to serve on the Supreme Court leading to a Court that more truly reflects the composition of the American population.
You can read more about Kathleen Sullivan here: http://www.law.stanford.edu/directory/profile/57/
--------------------------------
ACTION FOR MAY 20 - 22:
--------------------------------
STEP 1. Call Obama 202-456-1111
STEP 2. Email Obama: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
STEP 3: Repeat on Thursday and Friday.
--------------------------------------------------------
No matter what anyone tells you, remember…
NOW is our time.
YES we can.
Continue to invite your friends to join the campaign.
When Women Rule, It Makes a Difference
By Christina L. Boyd and Lee Epstein
Sunday, May 3, 2009
When Sandra Day O'Connor retired from the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005, national polls suggested that the public overwhelmingly supported replacing her with a female juror. O'Connor seemed to agree. "He's good in every way, except he's not a woman" is what she had to say about the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr.
Now, Justice David H. Souter is set to retire from the court, and President Obama is already facing similar pressure. Who might take Souter's place? We're already being introduced to Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Pamela Karlan -- all very accomplished individuals who happen to possess the one qualification that many commentators and court-watchers seem to agree is the most important this time around: They are women.
Some of the pressure comes from those who believe that the membership of our courts should reflect the makeup of our society. More than half the U.S. population is female. Nearly one-third of all U.S. lawyers are women. Approximately 30 percent of the judges serving on the lower federal courts are women.
But a diverse Supreme Court isn't just about a bench that looks like America. This is about jurisprudence, too. In research that we conducted with our colleague Andrew D. Martin, we studied the votes of federal court of appeals judges in many areas of the law, from environmental cases to capital punishment and sex discrimination. For the most part, we found no difference in the voting patterns of male and female judges, except when it comes to sex discrimination cases. There, we found that female judges are approximately 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party bringing the discrimination claim. We also found that the presence of a female judge causes male judges to vote differently. When male and female judges serve together to decide a sex discrimination case, the male judges are nearly 15 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party alleging discrimination than when they sit with male judges only.
This holds true even after we account for judges' ideological leanings. If Obama is considering two fairly moderate people, one a woman and the other a man, we would expect the woman to cast more liberal votes in sex discrimination cases. The same would be true if the president were considering two very liberal candidates, again, one a man and one a woman.
The retirement of the liberal-leaning Souter may not give the president a chance to move the court significantly to the left. But it does let him make a different shift. If he does choose a woman to fill Souter's seat, he could have a major impact on an area of law that's important to many Americans -- women and men alike.
=============
Got this on Facebook:
NATION-WIDE Campaign: Kathleen Sullivan for Supreme Court Justice!
Sullivan is incredible qualified and would bring a lot of diversity to the bench.
Supreme Court Justice David Souter is planning to retire at the end of the current court term after 19 years on the bench. The vacancy will give President Obama his first chance to name a member of the high court and begin to shape its future direction. We are urging the consideration and appointment of Kathleen Sullivan.
Kathleen Sullivan is hands down one of the most qualified candidates. She is a Marshall scholar and former Stanford Law dean whom constitutional law legend Laurence Tribe once called “the most extraordinary student I had ever had.” She is the author of the nation’s leading casebook in constitutional law, has litigated before the Supreme Court, and has been named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America by the National Law Journal. Sullivan was also a professor of law at Harvard Law School from 1984 until 1993. She joined Stanford Law School in 1993 and became the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law in 1996. Sullivan then served as the dean of Stanford Law School from 1999 until 2004, when she voluntarily stepped down to serve as the inaugural director of a new Stanford center on constitutional law. Since 2004, she has been the Stanley Morrison Professor of Law at Stanford Law School.
In addition to this impressive list of qualifications, Sullivan is also a woman and openly gay which would bring some much needed diversity to the Supreme Court.
If chosen, Sullivan would become the first ever openly gay Justice and third female Justice in United States history to serve on the Supreme Court leading to a Court that more truly reflects the composition of the American population.
You can read more about Kathleen Sullivan here: http://www.law.stanford.edu/directory/profile/57/
--------------------------------
ACTION FOR MAY 20 - 22:
--------------------------------
STEP 1. Call Obama 202-456-1111
STEP 2. Email Obama: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/
STEP 3: Repeat on Thursday and Friday.
--------------------------------------------------------
No matter what anyone tells you, remember…
NOW is our time.
YES we can.
Continue to invite your friends to join the campaign.