In a “Different” Voice

Details

Author(s):
Publish Date:
June 10, 2009
Publication Title:
Slate
Format:
Newspaper/Magazine Article
Citation(s):
  • Deborah Rhode, In a "Different" Voice: What Does the Research About How Gender Influences Judging Actually Say?, Slate, June 10, 2009.
Related Organization(s):

Abstract

In a 1991 essay, then-Justice Sandra Day O’Connor referred to questions about whether female judges reasoned in a “different” voice as being “dangerous and unanswerable.” The basis for her concern is clear from the debate over Judge Sonia Sotamayor’s remark, in a now famous 2001 Berkeley speech, 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’s statement has been interpreted by commentators from the right as evidence that she is “racist” (Newt Gingrich’s term) or incapable of unbiased decision-making. Those charges raise broader questions about the evidence on the effect of gender on judging. Do female judges in fact speak in a different voice? The evidence is mixed. Taken as a whole, the most systematic research suggests that gender matters in certain kinds of cases, in particular discrimination claims, which is one of the reasons why diversity should matter for selecting judges. But these cases are not a large part of the Supreme Court’s workload. Nor will statistical correlations predict the votes of any individual judge, which is why diversity is only one of the factors that should affect appointments.

A cottage industry of empirical work has tried to disentangle the influence of gender on judging. The studies have looked at a wide range of cases: sex discrimination, harassment, gay rights, or divorce—and also more general contested issues such as criminal procedure or obscenity. Results vary. The most recent comprehensive analysis is an unpublished paper by three political scientists, Christina Boyd, Lee Epstein, and Andrew Martin. By their calculation, about one-third of some 30 previous studies find differences in the votes of male and female judges or differences in the votes of a panel of judges when one member is a woman. About one-third find no such gender differences. The remaining third report gender differences in the votes either of individual judges or of judges with a woman on the panel—one or the other but not both.