0.02% versus the 99.98%

From The Supreme Court Needs Diversity in More Ways Than One by Benjamin H. Barton.  The subheading is "No current justice is a public-college alum, and only one was a trial judge."

I have long argued that in the US, what is described as racism is almost always classism.  We studiously avoid dealing with class because it does not lend itself as easily to affirmative action quotas based on race.  And it is far harder to deal with because there is so little philosophical agreement.  But when you look at the numbers, class is the central issue rather than race as Barton's article indirectly points out.

If President Biden makes good on his promise to nominate a black female justice, the Supreme Court will be more diverse than ever in terms of race and sex. But in another sense, the court has become increasingly homogeneous. Recent justices have come from remarkably similar backgrounds—and the president’s reported front-runner, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, would fit right in.

Judge Jackson grew up in a major metropolitan area, and her father was a lawyer. She would be the fifth sitting justice to fit that profile. She earned both her bachelor’s and law degrees at Harvard and would be the seventh justice with an Ivy League undergraduate degree and the eighth graduate of Harvard or Yale law school.

She clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer and would be the sixth justice to have served as a Supreme Court clerk. Two of her prospective colleagues, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, likewise succeeded the justices for whom they clerked. After clerking, Judge Jackson worked at an elite Washington law firm focusing on appellate litigation, as did five other current justices. She has served as a federal appellate judge, like every other justice but Elena Kagan, and would be the fourth justice from the District of Columbia Circuit. . . .

Studies consistently establish that more experientially diverse decision-making bodies tend to avoid groupthink, consider different and more innovative approaches, and then reach better decisions. Given that every justice is already a lawyer, it makes sense to try to diversify across other educational, geographic and experiential axes. This was the case historically, as Harvard graduates shared the bench with former politicians, law professors and even autodidacts with no formal education.

Another vector is religion, still centrally important to most Americans.  The US is, according to Pew Research Center:

Protestant (48%)

Unaffiliated (16%) 

Catholic (15%)

Agnostic (4%)

Atheist (3%)

Mormon (2%)

Jewish (2%)

Muslim (1%)

The US Supreme Court is 

Protestant (0%)

Catholic (78%)

Unaffiliated (0%)

Agnostic (0%)

Atheist (0%)

Mormon (0%)

Jewish (22%)

Muslim (0%)

Building on Barton, let's look at educational attainment:

PhD - 2%

Masters - 10%

Bachelors - 21%

Associate's degree - 6%

Some college - 18%

High School - 28%

Less than High School - 10%

The US Supreme Court is:

PhD - 0%

Masters - 100%

Bachelors - 0%

Associate's degree - 0%

Some college - 0%

High School - 0%

Less than High School - 0%

Credential quality for the US

Ivy League - 0.02%

Non-Ivy League - 99.98%

And for the US Supreme Court

Ivy League - 89%

Non-Ivy League - 11%

Average household income in the US - $68,000

Supreme Court Justice income - $223,500

You can go too far with this reductionism.  Both Thomas and Sotomayor, despite their later successes, were children of straightened circumstances.  The Supreme Court is not a pure bastion of elitism.

But . . . the above data does support exactly how insular and distinct they necessarily are from the great average American citizen.  

I have no beef with the current line-up of the current justices.  They are all bright people.  I am sure all of them routinely or periodically calibrate to the country at large.  There is no denying, however, that they do not look like America.  Especially in terms of religion and education and income and elitism.  

So if you are going to change your criteria for selection to make the Supreme Court look more like America, there is virtually a wholesale replacement required.  But only if you are so narrowly focused on assessing everyone on their race.  If you are blind to everything else (religion, class, diversity of education attainment, etc.) then, fundamentally, you are a racist.

Far better, I think, to let the chips fall where they may when you select based on achievement and political considerations.  That is how it has been done, and it has worked reasonably well.  And it is difficult to conjure up a better system.