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Georgia's Southern District Has Yet To Have A Black Judge. Things Don't Look Better After Getting Rid Of Affirmative Action.

Despite all the talk of progress, it still looks like the 70s.

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Diverse Social JusticeIt is interesting to trace the discourse of this country’s discussions of racial equity. You’ve got some of the 1970’s John Wayne-esque conditional white supremacy that lines up with some of today’s talking heads — it’s hard to know when “education to the point of responsibility” will be satisfied when Harvard and years of on-the-job experience aren’t enough. The growing sentiment today seems to be that rollbacks are in order in light of apparent successes rather than maintaining the laws and programs that protect minorities from the rain: Shelby County, SFFA v. Harvard, among others threats to diversity to come.  It is easy and affirming to believe that we’ve moved past the need for such equity measures. Unfortunately, it doesn’t hold up when you look at what’s happening in the real world. From Bloomberg Law:

Jack Ruffin’s mother never wanted him to be a lawyer. As a Black man in South Georgia, he once told an interviewer, it would only put a bigger target on his back.

But Ruffin pursued the career anyway, and built a record fighting school segregation and winning acquittals for wrongfully accused Black southerners. That record landed him in 1979 on a list of prospective nominees for a federal judgeship in Georgia.

Instead, the nomination went to a White lawyer and former federal bankruptcy judge with ties to then-Sen. Sam Nunn.

And 44 years later, the Southern District of Georgia still has never had a Black judge.

Now, does having a white judge automatically mean that the defendants in front of them will face harsher penalties? No. But there are some pretty obvious racial disparities in sentencing:

A recent study shows that as the number of Black judges in a courthouse increases, white judges are less likely to send Black defendants to prison. Just them being around can make a difference.

When you look at the benches of some district courts, like Georgia’s, it makes RBG’s clerk legacy look racially diverse.

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Of the 94 federal district courts, 25 have never had a non-White judge, according to a Bloomberg Law analysis of federal court records. It’s not just an issue in the South: Fifteen states from the Northeast to the upper Great Plains have courts on the list.

[I]n Georgia’s Southern District, a venue that includes the cities of Savannah and Augusta and 43 counties that line the coast and pack the state’s southeastern corner. Nearly one-third of the district’s residents are Black, making it the most diverse of any judicial district that has only ever had White judges.

A key role in diversifying benches is presidential nominations — Obama nominated a slew of judges and Biden is also doing his part after some light nudging. But other avenues will be at risk as the backlash against affirmative actions spirals out:

There aren’t any formal requirements to be considered for a federal judgeship; many trial court judges come from major law firms, US attorney’s offices, or were already judges in other courts before accepting the lifetime appointment…[M]ost Black lawyers in the region haven’t had the elite professional experiences and political connections that help elevate White lawyers to the US bench, local Black lawyers told Bloomberg Law. Others chalk up the absence of a Black federal judge to a lack of political will among the gatekeepers in the nominations process.

Getting into a prestigious law school will be harder post SFFN, and that’s just the start.  As you know, firms are already being threatened with lawsuits for attempting to recruit Black talent. Sure, Tom Cotton got made fun of, but MoFo folded on their diversity initiative and I doubt it will be the last firm to do so. It isn’t that there aren’t capable Black judges, it’s that their being gatekept out — Jack Ruffin’s story attests to that.

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Without intervening measures, the affected counties will be worse off. Diverse judiciaries reflect the communities they serve and make more informed decisions. I’m pretty sure the case where the Supreme Court of Louisiana denied a man counsel because they thought he was requesting a “lawyer dog” would have went over a little differently if the sitting judges had some of the common sense that seems to come with diversifying the judiciary.

Color of Justice: All-White Benches Persist in US District Courts [Bloomberg Law]

Chris Williams became a social media manager and assistant editor for Above the Law in June 2021. Prior to joining the staff, he moonlighted as a minor Memelord™ in the Facebook group Law School Memes for Edgy T14s.  He endured Missouri long enough to graduate from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. He is a former boatbuilder who cannot swim, a published author on critical race theory, philosophy, and humor, and has a love for cycling that occasionally annoys his peers. You can reach him by email at cwilliams@abovethelaw.com and by tweet at @WritesForRent.

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