Report paints ‘bleak’ picture of federal judiciary diversity in US
White men dominate the lower federal courts, while women and people of colour remain severely underrepresented at the US Court of Appeals and the US district courts levels, according to a new diversity report.
“ Examining the Demographic Compositions of U.S. Circuit and District Courts”, issued recently by the Center for American Progress, paints a “bleak picture of demographic representation across the lower federal courts,” said the public policy research and advocacy organisation.
Female judges make up just 27% of all lower federal court sitting judges (which includes judges serving in senior status—a form of semiretirement—who can still hear cases) and 34% of active judges
Meanwhile, people of colour make up just 20% of all sitting judges and 27% of active judges.
African Americans comprise 10% of sitting judges and 13% of active judges, while Hispanic judges make up about 7%and 9% of sitting and active judges, respectively.
Asian Americans comprise only 2.5% of active judges and 4% of sitting judges, while American Indian judges and those belonging to more than one race or ethnicity each make up about 1% or less of the lower federal judiciary.
“While nondiverse panels can, and have, ruled to advance vital civil rights—and courts with more diverse benches have ruled against such rights—the importance of representation transcends particular cases and can improve not only the intellectual diversity and depth of judicial opinions but also the public’s trust in the judiciary as a whole,” added the report.
‘Long-standing exclusion’
Women of colour make up only 7% of all sitting judges and 10% of all active judges serving on the lower federal courts, making them severely underrepresented on the bench. This, according to the report, reflects this group’s “long-standing intersectional exclusion from the judiciary”.
Nearly two-thirds (55 out of 91) of district courts have no women of colour actively serving on them. The Southern District Court of Illinois and the District Court of Hawaii are the only two courts where women of colour make up half of presiding active judges.
Judges who self-identify as LGBTQ also comprise an “exceptionally small proportion” of judges on the lower courts. Only 0.9% of all sitting judges and 1.5% of all active judges on the US Courts of Appeals and US District courts self-identify as LGBTQ.
Nearly half (6 of 13) of all federal circuit jurisdictions have no circuit or district judges who self-identify as LGBTQ.
“When deciding cases that affect historically underrepresented groups, federal judges who do not belong to such groups may have difficulty recognising and contextualising unique concerns or hardships experienced by those whose freedom or rights are being infringed upon; this may result in miscarriages of justice,” said the report.
The Center for American Progress added that even where there are no clear injustices, questions still arise over the courts’ legitimacy when cases with outsize impacts on women, people of colour, or LGBTQ individuals are decided by courts whose benches are demographically nondiverse.
The report reflects data as of November 18, 2019.
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