Majority Doesn't Care About Minorities on High Court

The LA Times has an article out today that discusses the results of a recent Gallup poll that shows that a majority of Americans don't care if there is minority representation on the Supreme Court, Americans Not Concerned With Diversity On Supreme Court, Poll Says:

There is but one woman on the nine-member Supreme Court, in a nation where women outnumber men at polling places; one black justice, in a nation that shed legalized racial discrimination only decades ago; and there never has been a Hispanic on the high court, in a nation whose fastest growing minority population is Latino.

Yet, with President Obama weighing his first appointment for the high court and promising to pick a nominee with "diversity of experience," Americans apparently are in no rush to even the score for women or minorities on the court.

The article goes on to discuss opinion on whether we need more women on the court in more detail than the minority question and the results on that question are lower than results in a poll taken soon after Justice O'Connor stepped down from the court. 

It shouldn't be surprising that a majority of people don't think it's that important to represent minorities on the court--you know, they're the minority and they usually get the short end.  The only interesting point I thought the article made was:

Women are more likely than men to call it important that the president nominate a woman for the court. Yet just 38% of the women surveyed by Gallup this month called it essential or a good idea. Among men surveyed, only 24% called it essential or a good idea.

But they didn't dig down into the numbers with minority groups in a similar fashion.  I would be very interested to know what percentage of African Americans and Hispanics think it's essential to have a voice on the Court compared to the overall national numbers.  Somehow, I bet it's a little bit higher than the roughly 26% and 32% discussed in this article.  Further research didn't show any articles addressing a greater breakdown of the numbers--I'll keep an eye out for Nate Silver addressing this.

Comments

[Lynn]

Our history of slavery and racial intolerance is shameful. While significant strides have been made in the last forty years there is a not insignificant vestige of racism left which is just as deplorable.

That said, what is with this preoccupation, bordering on obsession, with having every single institution in our society, whether it be law school admissions, city councils, Supreme Court benches, ad infinatum.....exactly numerically reflect the demographic racial percentages of our society.

I accept there was a time and place for quotas to help overcome entrenced, but subtle, racism and discrimination, but, come on.....there isn't a ski run in Vail that is as slippery a slope as this quota movement has become.

[g.]

Interesting that you'd go off on quotas and numbers when I was simply noting the rather short-sighted perspective of the article in question, not demanding that the Court suddenly be composed of at least five women and that there be a couple of African Americans and two or three Hispanics and an Asian to better reflect the diversity of our national experience. But since you brought it up, there have been 110 Justices of the Supreme Court (including the current Court). Of those, less than 2% have been women, less than 2% have been African Americans and 0% have been Hispanic. And most of the men who have served on the Court have been from relatively affluent and privileged households. I think it would be incredibly valuable to include folks from different heritages that might view our social institutions differently and bring a different perspective to the Court. If I was calling for quotas I'm afraid that it would be some time before we'd be nominating any more white men to that particular bench, but I'm not calling for that, just noting that we need to keep broadening the Court rather than just having a token woman and black man to represent.

[Lynn]

Damn, you're good, g.

[g.]

Why, thank you. I do think that quotas for quota's sake is a silly idea and I don't expect Pres. Obama to pick anyone who isn't incredibly qualified for the job. No Harriet Miers this time around!