By: Ciara Torres-Spelliscy
For state court watchers, last month provided a rare and historic moment to savor: A black governor was tasked with replacing the most powerful judge in the state, who happened to be a woman. Another small chance to make history, perhaps?
But when New York Gov. David Paterson looked at the short list of candidates presented to him to succeed Judith Kaye, the trailblazing Court of Appeals chief judge, all were male, and six of the seven candidates were white.
His hands tied by legal precedent, Paterson nominated a white man. But at the time, he publicly lamented the limited pool of candidates: “I firmly believe that we must revise the process for future judicial nominations to ensure that those under consideration represent all New Yorkers.”
The problem is the same across the country where many state courthouses still seem to have a “Whites Only” sign on display when it comes to the appointment of judges. Even in racially diverse states, racial diversity of the courts is either nonexistent or far from reflective of the general population. Today, white males are overrepresented by nearly 2-to-1 on state appellate benches compared with the general population.
Why does this matter? Because, as we are often reminded, we are a nation of laws. We resolve or differences in courtrooms ans most legal disputes in America are decided in state courts, so when those courts don't reflect the broad range of constituencies that come before them, they have less credibility when it comes to fairly resolving our conflicts.
Approaching the Whites-Only Bench....
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