Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
1401 New York Avenue, NW
Suite 400
Washington, DC 20005

For Immediate Release
Contacts:
Kim Alton
202-662-8600
September 28, 2005

U.S. STATE JUDICIARY IS FAR FROM REPRESENTATIVE
~New Study Shows that Minority Candidates Face Unique Barriers to Becoming Judges~

(Washington, DC) – At a time when our nation is focused on creating diversity on the Supreme Court, a new study shows that there is a serious lack of diversity among state judiciaries. According to a new study just released by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (“Lawyers’ Committee”), despite some modest advances, minority candidates who want to serve as judges often face unique barriers to office.

The study, Answering the Call for a More Diverse Judiciary: A Review of State Judicial Selection Models and their Impact on Diversity, finds that the failure to overcome obstacles such as racially polarized voting and the inability to raise sufficient campaign funds has created a glass ceiling for minority judges, making it difficult for them to win seats in statewide high court judicial elections. These barriers pose serious threats to the fair administration of justice both locally and nationally since state courts are transmission belts for the federal bench and even the Supreme Court. The study also includes expanded data from four states: Texas, California, New York, and Mississippi.

Public opinion about whether or not the judicial system is fair is largely based on the perceptions of those who sit on the bench. Only 29% of Hispanics and 18% of African Americans strongly believe that judges are generally honest and fair in deciding cases. The overabundance of white male judges combined with the overrepresentation of racial and ethnic minorities as criminal defendants creates a palpable friction between the judges and the judged.

“As a nation, we need to be firm in our resolve to create a representative judiciary. All sides of the political spectrum appear to agree that racial diversity enriches the quality of the judicial decision making process,” said Barbara R. Arnwine, Executive Director of the Lawyers’ Committee.

Some of the study’s findings include:

• Texas, where Hispanics are the largest and fastest growing minority group in the state at 32%, were only 11.5% of the state judiciary from 2001-2004. The second largest minority group in Texas—African Americans at 12%--represented a meager 3.3% of judgeships in 2004.
• Mississippi, where from 2001-2004, the number of African American judges fell by 50%, from 20 judges in 2001 to only 10 in 2004, despite the fact that Mississippi has the largest African American population in the country at 37%. Besides African Americans, no other judges of color serve on the Mississippi judiciary.
• California, where from 2001 to 2004 the number of minority judges has remained relatively constant, African American judges dropped from 5% in 2001 to 4.5% of the judiciary in 2004, while Asian American judges advanced from 3.2% to 3.5%.  Last year, minorities represented 51% of California’s total population while judges of color were only 13.5% of the state’s judicial system. Hispanics are 32% of California’s population, yet, they only represent a mere 5.4% of the state judiciary. While 11% of the state’s population is Asian American, in 2004, only 3.5% of the state’s general jurisdiction appellate and trial court judges were Asian American.
• New York, where there have been measurable improvements for judges of color, increasing from 11.6% in 2001 to 14.5% in 2004. Notably, the number of both Hispanic and Asian American judges has nearly doubled. However, these improvements are still not in tandem with the racial composition of the state. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, people of color make up 37.4% of New York State’s population. Yet, minorities only account for 14.5% of the state judiciary.

In light of these findings, the Lawyers’ Committee makes the following recommendations to promote judicial diversity:

• Law schools, bar associations, and state governmental bodies should invest resources in scholarships, mentoring programs, and academic support activities to encourage the judiciary as a possible career path.
• Establish judicial diversity as a national priority by increasing awareness through public education campaigns and continued diversity studies by state supreme courts.
• Increase the pipeline of minority attorneys by utilizing broad judicial selection criteria and procedures and by including minority bar associations in the selection process.
• Increased diversity within law firms and in leadership positions in the state bar associations should also provide a means to increase the pool of eligible potential candidates. Broad judicial selection criteria and procedures should be used to ensure that future judges are drawn from the broadest scope of the legal profession.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is a non-partisan, non-profit civil rights legal organization formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to provide legal services to address racial discrimination. The study was supported with a grant from the Open Society Institute.

-30-

top

back to Press Releases