Gender, Affirmative Action, and Recruitment to the Federal Bench

In the analysis which follows, an effort will be made to assess the historical record of the appointment of women to the federal bench. Extended consideration will be given to the Carter administration\u27s judicial recruitment behavior in an effort to assess the thrust and implications of the President\u27s affirmative action concerns. How successful was Carter in appointing women to the federal judiciary and how did the women appointees differ, if at all, from their male colleagues? Do women appointees follow a different path to the bench than males? Did affirmative action dilute the quality of the federal bench as many administration critics claimed or, alternatively, did criteria exist for women appointees which remained at a higher threshold than those employed for male candidates? Examination of these and other questions relies on a uniquely rich and penetrating data source. Finally, attention will be directed to President Reagan\u27s judicial selection behavior as manifested in his recruitment of women jurists during the first three years of his administration

Gender, Affirmative Action, and Recruitment to the Federal Bench

In the analysis which follows, an effort will be made to assess the historical record of the appointment of women to the federal bench. Extended consideration will be given to the Carter administration\u27s judicial recruitment behavior in an effort to assess the thrust and implications of the President\u27s affirmative action concerns. How successful was Carter in appointing women to the federal judiciary and how did the women appointees differ, if at all, from their male colleagues? Do women appointees follow a different path to the bench than males? Did affirmative action dilute the quality of the federal bench as many administration critics claimed or, alternatively, did criteria exist for women appointees which remained at a higher threshold than those employed for male candidates? Examination of these and other questions relies on a uniquely rich and penetrating data source. Finally, attention will be directed to President Reagan\u27s judicial selection behavior as manifested in his recruitment of women jurists during the first three years of his administration

Naming Names: The Impact of Supreme Court Opinion Attribution on Citizen Assessment of Policy Outcomes

The manner in which political institutions convey their policy outcomes can have important implications for how the public views institutions\u27 policy decisions. This paper explores whether the way in which the U.S. Supreme Court communicates its policy decrees affects how favorably members of the public assess its decisions. Specifically, we investigate whether attributing a decision to the nation\u27s High Court or to an individual justice influences the public\u27s agreement with the Court\u27s rulings. Using an experimental design, we find that when a Supreme Court outcome is ascribed to the institution as a whole, rather than to a particular justice, people are more apt to agree with the policy decision. We also find that identifying the gender of the opinion author affects public agreement under certain conditions. Our findings have important implications for how public support for institutional policymaking operates, as well as the dynamics of how the Supreme Court manages to accumulate and maintain public goodwill