 | Today's Crayon Diversity Award goes to Washington Gov. Gary Locke |
As highly respected role models, you also have the power to attract more people of color and more women to careers in the judiciary. I mentioned the more than 20 percent minority and nearly half women I’ve appointed. While I am proud of our progress, it isn’t enough because the overall profile of our judiciary falls short of reflecting our communities. Indeed, our judiciary should reflect not just our society, but to some degree the litigants appearing before our judges so that the rulings, especially in criminal cases, have greater acceptance.While I agree with the broad principle that the judiciary should represent the diversity of the state's population, Gov. Locke seems to be saying that skin color is the only basis on which that diversity should be measured. I always thought that America aspired to realize the ideal that "Justice is blind", but Gov. Locke rejects even the ideal that justice should be colorblind.
The notion that judges should look like the litigants whose cases they decide is not only novel but also difficult to implement. If a black man sues a white woman, should the judge then be a mulatto hermaphrodite?
But never mind the moral and practical limitations of the Gov. Locke's proposals. They are also statistically challenged. According to the U.S. Census Bureau's most recent estimates, Washington's population is 78.1% non-Hispanic white. If Gov. Locke proposes that many more than 20% of judicial appointees be "people of color", this would leave white people underrepresented. On the basis of what nobel principle is this a good idea?
As a Chinese-American, Gov. Locke should be careful about embracing policies that distribute political offices on the basis of ethnic representation over individual merit. The Census Bureau also tells us [large PDF, page 3] that only 1.0% of the people of Washington state are Chinese. Gov. Locke is completing his eighth year in the governor's mansion. According to his theory, only 1.0% of Washington governors should be Chinese-Americans, which means he would have us wait another 792 years before we elect the next Chinese-American governor.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at April 28, 2004 09:58 AMFurther evidence that Gov. Locke is - let's say - not very smart. But he doesn't have to think through what he says. It is politically correct!
Posted by: Ron on April 28, 2004 01:15 PM