Who's arguing before the Supreme Court?
Critical Analysis
Based on the visual above, what portion of the 374 lawyers who argued before the Supreme Court since 2017 were Male?
Based on the visual above, what portion of the 374 lawyers who argued before the Supreme Court since 2017 were White?
Based on the visual above, describe the demographic diversity of the lawyers who have argued before the Supreme Court since 2017.
Based on the visual above, what is the big story about the race and ethnicity of lawyers arguing at the Supreme Court?
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation means the Supreme Court is now more diverse along racial and gender lines than ever before, with four female justices, two Black justices and one Latina justice. The elite group of lawyers who argue before the justices, however, remains mostly White and male. Why do you think the lawyers who argue before the Supreme Court are overwhelmingly White and male?
What is one consequence of having such an overwhelmingly white and male group of lawyers arguing cases before the Supreme Court?
How do you think the lack of diversity at the Court impact the Court’s legitimacy?
Law clerks play an essential role at the Supreme Court, reading briefs and writing decisions for the Justices. Clerks are also overwhelmingly White and male. In 1998, Tony Mauro, a reporter for USA Today, found that of the 394 law clerks hired by the Supreme Court justices at the time during their tenures, fewer than 2 percent were Black. Four justices had never hired a Black law clerk. Fewer than a quarter were women. When Mauro repeated the study in 2017 for the National Law Journal, he found that clerks had become marginally more diverse: 85 percent of clerks hired between 2005 and 2017 were White. Only a third were women. Data about clerk diversity since 2017 is shown in the visual below*. Why do you think Supreme Court clerks lack demographic diversity?
A decade before Thurgood Marshall became the first Black American on the Supreme Court in 1967, he was an attorney who stood before the court and made the oral argument in Brown v. Board of Education. There was a moment in his closing argument, when Marshall started to describe what segregation looks like, talking about kids walking to school together, White and Black, getting along and laughing together, and then having to part ways suddenly when they reach the corner and one has to go to the White school and one has to go to the Black school. And in describing this, Marshall pauses and he says, ‘I’ve seen them do it.’ Explain whether the diversity of clerks, justices, or lawyers arguing in front of the court is important.
The diversity of the Court has changed over the decades. Predict what year the lawyers arguing before the court will be roughly equally divided between males and females?
Learning Extension
Listen to this NPR story about the diversity of lawyers arguing before the Supreme Court.
Action Extension
Contact the Supreme Court by phone and tell them what you think about diversity at the Court.
Telephone: 202-479-3000
TTY: 202-479-3472
(Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.)