Amy K. Matsui, Senior Counsel and Director of Women and the Courts

A recent article pointed out that the Oakland federal courthouse, in the Northern District of California, is home to six federal judges – three lifetime appointees and three magistrates – all of whom are women. Moreover, five of those six judges are women of color. This appears to be the first time a courthouse of this size has had an all-women bench, and stands in stark contrast to the overall representation of women in the federal district courts, which hovers around 30%.

Jeremy Fogel, the director of the Federal Judicial Center (on leave from the Northern District of California himself) noted that "It's not just the courthouse and the majesty of the building, the dignity of the courtroom, that matters … but are people in various positions in the judiciary someone they can identify with? From the standpoint of appearances, [an all-women court is] a good thing."

Today, the Supreme Court heard the first arguments of the 2012-13 Term. A number of cases that the Court will review this Term could have a significant impact on women’s legal rights.

This Term, the Court’s review of affirmative action policies in state university admissions presents a troubling opportunity to turn back the clock, particularly given that Justice O’Connor, a key vote in the Court’s 2003 decision upholding affirmative action in admissions (and its author), has since left the Court. In Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the University of Texas’s undergraduate admissions policy, which uses race as one of multiple factors in making admissions decisions, was constitutional under the Supreme Court’s aforementioned 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger.  Affirmative action policies intended to promote not only racial but also gender diversity are particularly necessary in vocational and higher education—for example, by eliminating barriers to women’s entrance into historically male-dominated fields, such as engineering and computer science. The Center submitted an amicus brief in support of the University of Texas, explaining that an educational experience in a diverse community of learners can dispel both race and gender stereotypes, which are often intertwined, and that this diversity is essential to preparing students to succeed as leaders in communities and businesses. Fisher will be argued next Wednesday.