American Bar Association awards lower ratings to women and minorities

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2014-02/uor-aba022714.php

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE: 27-Feb-2014
Contact: Susan Hagen
University of Rochester

American Bar Association awards lower ratings to women and minorities

For more than half a century, the American Bar Association has vetted the nation's judicial nominees, certifying candidates as "well qualified," "qualified," or "not qualified" and in the process rankling conservatives and liberals alike when nominees earn less than stellar marks.

Now a new study suggests that the sometimes-controversial ratings could be tilted against minorities and women. An analysis of 1,770 district court nominations from 1960 to 2012 finds that the ABA systematically awards lower ratings to minorities and women than to white or male candidates. However, a candidate's political ideology and whether they are a Republican or Democrat have no bearing on the influential seal of approval, the research shows.

The study finds, for example, that African Americans are 42 percentage points less likely to receive a high rating from the ABA than are whites trained at similarly ranked law schools, with similar legal experience, and nominated by the same president. Women, likewise, are 19 percentage points less likely to be highly rated than men with comparable educational and professional qualifications.


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Many factors can affect a judicial nomination, but the analysis documents that the ABA ratings are one of the most significant. "Receiving a rating of 'not qualified' is more or less the equivalent of an 'F'," says Sen. Those candidates are 35 percentage points less likely to be confirmed than their more highly-ranked peers, according to the study. During the Obama administration, of the 14 judicial nominees who were given a "not qualified" rating, nine were women and eight were racial or ethnic minorities, Sen reports.

"Low ratings do keep judges out of the federal courts and over time and on average women and minority judicial nominees get more of these lower ratings," she says.

But do the ratings help to weed out individuals who truly would be unsuited for the bench? After all, according to the ABA, the evaluation is based on such laudable criteria as integrity, professional competence, and judicial temperament. Perhaps these difficult-to-quantify qualities introduce important factors into the considerations.

To test this question, Sen examined how often a judge's rulings were overturned, an indicator many scholars agree is a good measure of judicial performance. Using a variety of statistical controls and comparisons, she found no meaningful difference between judges who were rated highly or poorly by the ABA.

"A judge who receives the 'F' is actually no more likely to be reversed than a judge who receives the 'A+' rating of well qualified," says Sen.

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