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Articles 1 - 8 of 8
Full-Text Articles in Judges
"Better Too Much Than Not Enough": Women Of Color On The Federal Bench, Laura Moyer, Rorie Spill Solberg, Allison Harris
"Better Too Much Than Not Enough": Women Of Color On The Federal Bench, Laura Moyer, Rorie Spill Solberg, Allison Harris
Faculty Scholarship
It is well established that the federal judiciary has been an overwhelmingly White and male institution since its creation and continues to be so today. Even as presidents of both parties have looked to diversify their judicial nominees, this has tended to result in the appointment of White women and men of color rather than women of color. Using data on the confirmed federal district and circuit court judges from presidents Clinton through Trump, we assess how the backgrounds of women of color nominated to the federal judiciary compare with those of other appointees. The results indicate that, compared to …
Assessing President Obama’S Appointment Of Women To The Federal Appellate Courts, Laura Moyer
Assessing President Obama’S Appointment Of Women To The Federal Appellate Courts, Laura Moyer
Faculty Scholarship
A major legacy of the Obama presidency was the mark he left on the federal courts with respect to increasing judicial diversity. In particular, President Obama’s appointments of women to the federal judiciary exceeded all previous presidents in terms of both absolute numbers and as a share of all judges; he also appointed a record-setting number of women of color to the lower federal courts. In this Article, I take an intersectional approach to exploring variation in the professional backgrounds, qualifications, and Senate confirmation experiences of Obama’s female appeals court appointees, comparing them with George W. Bush and Bill Clinton …
Trailblazers And Those That Followed : Personal Experiences, Gender, And Judicial Empathy., Laura P. Moyer, Susan B. Haire
Trailblazers And Those That Followed : Personal Experiences, Gender, And Judicial Empathy., Laura P. Moyer, Susan B. Haire
Faculty Scholarship
This paper investigates one causal mechanism that may explain why female judges on the federal appellate courts are more likely than men to side with plaintiffs in sex discrimination cases. To test whether personal experiences with inequality are related to empathetic responses to the claims of female plaintiffs, we focus on the first wave of female judges, who attended law school during a time of severe gender inequality. We find that female judges are more likely than their male colleagues to support plaintiffs in sex discrimination cases, but that this difference is seen only in judges who graduated law school …
Diversity, Deliberations, And Judicial Opinion Writing., Susan B. Haire, Laura P. Moyer, Shawn Treier
Diversity, Deliberations, And Judicial Opinion Writing., Susan B. Haire, Laura P. Moyer, Shawn Treier
Faculty Scholarship
Underlying scholarly interest in diversity is the premise that a representative body contributes to robust decision-making processes. Using an innovative measure of opinion content, we examine this premise by analyzing deliberative outputs in the US courts of appeals (1997-2002). While the presence of a single female or minority did not affect the attention to issues in the majority opinion, panels composed of a majority of women or minorities produced opinions with significantly more points of law compared to panels with three Caucasian males.
Rethinking Critical Mass In The Federal Appellate Courts., Laura Moyer
Rethinking Critical Mass In The Federal Appellate Courts., Laura Moyer
Faculty Scholarship
This article draws from critical mass studies of gender in other political institutions to inform an application to the US Courts of Appeals. The results demonstrate the utility of considering court-level aspects of diversity. As mixed-sex panels become more common within a circuit, both male and female judges increasingly support plaintiffs in civil rights claims, though the magnitude of the effect is larger for women. The presence of a female chief judge is also positively associated with pro-plaintiff decisions by men and women in sex discrimination cases.
Judicial Innovation And Sexual Harassment Doctrine In The U.S. Court Of Appeals., Laura P. Moyer, Holley Takersley
Judicial Innovation And Sexual Harassment Doctrine In The U.S. Court Of Appeals., Laura P. Moyer, Holley Takersley
Faculty Scholarship
The determination that sexual harassment constituted “discrimination based on sex” under Title VII was first made by the lower federal courts, not Congress. Drawing from the literature on policy diffusion, this article examines the adoption of hostile work environment standards across the U.S. Courts of Appeals in the absence of controlling Supreme Court precedent. The results bolster recent findings about the influence of female judges on their male colleagues and suggest that in addition to siding with female plaintiffs, female judges also helped to shape legal rules that promoted gender equality in the workplace.
The Role Of Case Complexity In Judicial Decision Making., Laura P. Moyer
The Role Of Case Complexity In Judicial Decision Making., Laura P. Moyer
Faculty Scholarship
The literature on ideology and decision making offers conflicting expectations about how judges’ ideology should affect their votes in cases that raise many legal issues. Using cases from the U.S. Courts of Appeals, I examine the strength of ideology as a predictor of sincere voting in single and multi-issue cases and test whether the same effect for ideology can be seen for liberal and conservative judges. For all judges, ideology yields a larger effect as the number of issues increases; however, conservative judges are much more likely than liberal judges to cast sincere votes at all levels of complexity.
Gender, Race, And Intersectionality On The Federal Appellate Bench., Todd Collins, Laura Moyer
Gender, Race, And Intersectionality On The Federal Appellate Bench., Todd Collins, Laura Moyer
Faculty Scholarship
While theoretical justifications predict that a judge’s gender and race may influence judicial decisions, empirical support for these arguments has been mixed. However, recent increases in judicial diversity necessitate a reexamination of these earlier studies. Rather than examining individual judges on a single characteristic, such as gender or race alone, this research note argues that the intersection of individual characteristics may provide an alternative approach for evaluating the effects of diversity on the federal appellate bench. The results of cohort models examining the joint effects of race and gender suggest that minority female judges are more likely to support criminal …