tinyurl.com/bk4or -> news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050920/cm_usatoday/diversitychangesthewayjusticesseetheworld
President Bush nominates O'Connor's successor, he will have an opportunity to remedy tha t, and it should be a priority. In a nation as diverse as America, a diversity of ideas and perspectives adds to the court's ability to wisely decide issues that change lives. I f all nine justices see law and life from the same vantage point, their ideas will not be challenged, tested and honed into the best possible ru lings. Appellate Judge John Roberts, who appears headed for confirmation as the next chief justice, is superbly qualified as a lawyer, but he's also ver y much like the other overwhelmingly white, male lawyers he would join. Most worked in past pre sidential administrations, sat on lower courts or practiced at elite law firms. O'Connor is the only one from the Southwest and the only one eve r elected to public office. none of the other justices can see life as O'Connor does. She grew up on a ranch, served in the state Legislature and faced gender discrimination . She graduated near the top of her class at Stanford Law, but the only law job she was offered was as a "legal secretary" at a firm in Californ ia. To those who argue that merit and legal scholarship should be the only st andards, the answer is it's easy to name a minority or female justice wi thout compromising excellence or creating quotas. In law, as in other professions, minorities and women have made great str ides. Though the federal judiciary still doesn't look quite like Am erica, about 10% of federal judges are African-American, nearly 7% are H ispanic and about 23% are women. Bush might take his cue from the justice who is retiring. In a 1992 tribu te to Marshall, O'Connor wrote about the value of diversity. During the court's deliberations, Marshall's life experiences informed the debates, she said. No one else had gone to segregated schools, represented Afric an-Americans facing death sentences or been told by a gun-toting white m an to get out of a small Mississippi town before dark. After Marshall was gone, she wrote, she often longed for one of his stori es that might "change the way I see the world." The nation's high est court should not approach that job from a single, narrow perspective .
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