During his presidential campaign, President Obama expressed his desire to diversify the federal judiciary which is primarily comprised of white men. As a result of his administration’s efforts, we have witnessed the first Hispanic sworn in to serve on the United States Supreme Court, the first openly gay man appointed to a federal district court and the first Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese women judicial nominees. "Having racial diversity, gender diversity, experiential diversity — all of those things we are mindful of and committed to seeking out when we're looking for the best candidates," Kathryn Ruemmier, the new White House counsel, tells National Public Radio (NPR). Almost half of the 97 candidates who have won confirmation during Obama's presidency are women and approximately a quarter are African-American.
According to Ed Whelan, a prominent conservative who used to work in the Justice Department during George W. Bush’s administration, "The Obama administration doesn't have a coherent judicial philosophy so it's not surprising that it's falling back on diversity, which I think it sees among other things as appealing to its various political constituencies." The notion that judges’ decision-making might be affected by their gender and race or ethnicity is incompatible to those who view "judging" as the objective disposition of cases without regard to judges' personal backgrounds, biases, attitudes, and ideologies. However, research studies underscore the importance of diversity on the bench. Is advancing judicial diversity a "coherent judicial policy"? Should the face of justice be a reflection of all of us?