Should They Look Like Me?

By Laura McKenna

In 2001, at the University of California at Berkeley, Sonia Sotomayor said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Sotomayor has been nominated for the Supreme Court by President Obama. She is under much scrutiny as the public tries to guess how she will rule on hot button issues, such as Affirmative Action, abortion, immigration, and church-state issues. That 2001 statement has been the focus of much controversy in the past couple of weeks.

In that speech, Sotomayor seems to say that her background enabled her to have a unique understanding of the nuances in cases that involved minorities and women. A judge with a different background would not be as sensitive. 

Rush Limbaugh has been quick to call her a racist for those remarks, but her comments can not be brushed off so easily. It taps into an old debate in America. Does race and gender influence decision-making?

In political science, we use the terms, descriptive representation and substantive representation.

Descriptive representation is the belief that political representatives should reflect the ethnic and gender composition of their constituency. A representative from the Harlem district should be black, while the representative from Utah should be white and Mormon. In addition, the entire body should be 50% female.

Substantive representation is the belief that representatives should reflect the political preferences of their constituencies, and their skin color and gender are irrelevant. An old white guy can effectively advocate for the needs of a poor, minority population.

In one study, Carol M. Swain explored this issue by looking at Congressional voting decisions. She found that liberal white members of Congress represented black interests as strongly as did black representatives. Liberal white Congressmen had nearly the same voting records as their black counterparts.

However, these findings may not necessarily be applied to Supreme Court justices. Decision making may be more simple for members of Congress than Supreme Court judges. They are able to mirror decision making of their colleagues, and they have case work and the need for reelection to keep them very attuned to their constituency's needs. A Supreme Court has few colleagues and no regular contact with the public. In that case, perhaps the need for descriptive representation is more critical.

This matter is far from settled. It will be interesting to see if this matter is discussed during the confirmation hearings over the summer.

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