Will Obama Nominate a Lesbian Law Professor for the Supreme Court?

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That’s “lesbian” as in “a lesbian person” not a lawyer who specializes in “lesbian law,” whatever that might be.


Most people think Obama will pick a woman, in part because only one of the nine seated justices is female at present. But it appears that at least one short list is forming up that includes even additional diversity. The list of candidates that has been circulated by the AP includes Kathleen Sullivan, openly gay, who if memory serves would have overlapped with Obama at Harvard Law (he may well have taken classes from her).

Kathleen Sullivan, former dean of Stanford Law School.

Born in 1955 in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. Received law degree from Harvard University in 1981. Openly gay. Worked as law professor at Harvard University from 1984-1993. Worked as law professor at Stanford University from 1993-1999. Served as dean of Stanford law school from 1999-2004. Works as law professor at Stanford University. Was involved in legal teams fighting for LGBT rights before the US Supreme Court including Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 where the court upheld Georgia’s criminal sodomy law and in 2003 Lawrence v. Texas where the court overturned sodomy laws.

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0 thoughts on “Will Obama Nominate a Lesbian Law Professor for the Supreme Court?

  1. There are several constituencies that need to be kept happy. I think the next nominee should be a Hispanic black lesbian atheist.

  2. “I think the next nominee should be a Hispanic black lesbian atheist”

    You forgot left-handed.

    I can’t imagine the hue-and-cry that would arise if Sullivan were to be the nominee (and I’m capable of imagining some very irate people). Would she have any chance of making it through and being placed on the court?

    I didn’t see it in the linked article: is there a current front-runner for the nomination?

  3. Sullivan would be an extremely clever choice on Obama’s part – there’s a very high likelihood that Scalia would simply burst at the news of her confirmation, giving Obama a second SCOTUS vacancy to fill.

    “Kathleen Sullivan, openly gay, who if memory serves would have overlapped with Obama at Harvard Law (he may well have taken classes from her)”

    Cue right wing blogs asserting Obama took classes in lesbianism.

  4. I was going to add to the ‘qualifications’ by adding four other ‘qualities’ and then realized that would just be cruel.

  5. Does it matter? What about the candidate’s qualifications as a constitutional scholar?

    When I was just a grade schooler, I listened to inspirational speeches by great men that told about dreams of a land where a person’s color or gender (and now, by extension, sexual orientation) would not matter. Only their character and their ability to do the job. I thought that was the greatest idea I ever heard. I longed for the day that dream would become reality.

    And we’re still not there. I live in a land where people’s color and gender and sexual orientation are still considerations for landing the job, only never in the way I would have imagined. I feel cheated.

  6. I can see it now — confirming her would mean schools would be lesbianism training starting in kindergarten.

  7. “”I think the next nominee should be a Hispanic black lesbian atheist”

    You forgot left-handed.”

    woah woah woah, I was cool about this up until you got to left handed. We can’t have those sinister bastards in the supreme court.

    Seriously though, I think he should nominate her even if it’s guaranteed that she won’t be confirmed. The battle for “oh no, it’s nawt cause she’s a ‘bian, it’z somethin else we just made up” over and over, as it constantly exposes their prejudice.

  8. Probably a good stalking horse for someone Obama really wants – someone less “out” while having similar views.

  9. “Sullivan would be an extremely clever choice on Obama’s part – there’s a very high likelihood that Scalia would simply burst at the news of her confirmation, giving Obama a second SCOTUS vacancy to fill.”

    Almost a certainty if he also made her the chief judge. Didn’t Bush pull that with Roberts?

  10. The thing is, the Supreme Court has never looked much like this country. It usually looks like the power structure but not the whole nation.

    We are half women. We are about 68% Non-Hispanic white. The court does not reflect this very well, and it should.

    Yes, the person needs to be highly qualified. I always laugh when I hear, though, that highly qualified as a criterion trumps all else. Anyone who thinks that has never actually been on a hiring committee. There are enough Off or Non-White Lesbian Female Atheists (or whatever) who are qualified to make this work.

  11. “We are half women. We are about 68% Non-Hispanic white. The court does not reflect this very well, and it should.”

    Ultimately, it should. That’s because we want all people to have the same opportunity to become educated and gain the experience and knowledge necessary to serve in that position. Then, picking people based on their qualifications alone will cause a court to be benched with people who, with some random fluctuation (it being a small sample), are a sample of the race, gender and sexual orientation of the population at large.

    To pick candidates based on gender, race and sexual orientation assumes that this has already happened. It assumes that they are all about equally qualified, so you might as well pick the ones that will go over well with the electorate. That we seem to be considering picking people not based primarily on their qualifications, as though all candidates are equally qualified, makes me quite suspicious that it is not yet the case that there are enough qualified diverse candidates available.

    Don’t get me wrong. I would be tickled pink to see the court have a cross-section of Americana. But I want it to be able to do its job first and foremost. The Supreme Court is not a showcase–It’s the workhorse of American law. So let’s get all Americans educated, and wealthy and able to have a fair shot at the power base. Then perhaps you’ll see the court only half-European and only half-male.

  12. There is a large number of highly qualified female judges. There is a large number of highly qualified black judges. There is a large number of highly qualified Hispanic judges. There is a large number of gay judges.

    A highly qualified female black hispanic lesbians may be hard to find, but maybe not impossible.

    I think the most imbalance along these axes is female/male (does that make sense?) so picking a woman is the thing to do.

    There really is not a “best” one person. Nothing like that is even close to the basic reality. There are hundreds or thousands of “bests” for a job like this. Among these bests there are many non-white male candidates.

    Right?

  13. That we seem to be considering picking people not based primarily on their qualifications, as though all candidates are equally qualified, makes me quite suspicious that it is not yet the case that there are enough qualified diverse candidates available.

    A big part of the problem comes not from the pool of people qualified to be nominated, but from the unconscious associations we make between qualification and traits that have nothing to do with qualifications. If the court has always been white guys or predominantly white guys, and you say to yourself, “Hey, I need a new justice,” you’re more likely to think of a white guy.

    It takes work to overcome one’s own stereotyped thinking. You’re seeing that work. You’re seeing the AP (not the White House, by the way) say, “Who are some of the qualified candidates who stray furthest from the stereotypes?” Turns out there are a bunch of them. Duh.

    Not sure why Bush didn’t see that when he was appointing.

  14. Not sure why Bush didn’t see that when he was appointing.

    My hypothesis about that: because Bush is ******* stupid.

  15. Michael Kirby
    Viginia Bell

    In many ways Australia is more conservative then the USA. I guess we have you beat in this area. 🙂

  16. Then, picking people based on their qualifications alone will cause a court to be benched with people who, with some random fluctuation (it being a small sample), are a sample of the race, gender and sexual orientation of the population at large.

    Yes, if that had ever actually been engaged in, it would have that effect.

  17. Kathleen Sullivan is a brilliant scholar and experienced appellate attorney who is much more of a libertarian than a liberal. (She supports the 2nd Amendment for example; she kept radical blind-sheik lawyer, Lynn Stewart, out of Stanford as a student “mentor” despite leftist criticism from others in the academy. She co-authored the leading textbook on Constitutional law with a decidedly non-leftist (now deceased) scholar, Gerald Gunther.

    As to Justice Scalia, he is close personal friends with Justice Ginsberg, and was a professor at Stanford himself before Reagan selected him for the D.C. Court of Appeals en route to S.Ct. He was my professor in 1980 when our class in administrative law got cut short because of his appointment. Sotomayor is a lightweight in comparison, and would be the real daily double on the demographics, not Sullivan.

  18. Wayne, I saw your post after I already posted. I don’t disagree with your about affirmative action. But unlike being a fire fighter for example, white women in law have never received affirmative action as far as I am aware. And that is exactly because of what you say–they went to college on their own merits, got into law school that way and moved on from there. I graduated in 1981, the same year she did. There was no affirmative action and women made up just slightly less than half of the graduating class. The last thing Sullivan would be is an affirmative action pick. She and Scalia would make a great “on the one hand, on the other hand” duo. Her being a lesbian will not give BO some additional clout as a twofer the way Sotomayor would. Her orientation would just be an irrational and irrelevant hurdle to overcome in front of grandstanding Senators.

  19. Kathleen Sullivan is one of the most gifted legal scholars, professors, and lawyers of her generation. Her classes at Harvard Law School in the late 1980’s were beyond worth the (steep) price of admission. Back then, we (her students) speculated that she would make an amazing choice for the Supreme Court, but in our wildest speculations, could not envision how it could ever happen. Of course, at the time, we didn’t realize that one of our classmates would become President of the United States. So all bets are off: After all, the only thing more surprising than a lesbian Supreme Court Justice would be American electing its first African American President.

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