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Comment by FiReaNG3L | Hacker News Reader

Sure, you can see it that way, and positive discrimination is bad we can agree on.

But you can also see that pool of 7% containing top tier candidates ignored for the longest time - it's like a tree that nobody wanted the fruits of for the stupidest reason.

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Point taken, but there's a big difference between saying, "We're going to take hard look at candidates from groups that have historically been passed over so we can get a great justice" and "We're only going to nominate someone from a very specific and small demographic group." I think most reasonable people would agree that the first approach is a good one and the second is misguided.

Completely agree with you - it doesn't even do justice to appoint candidates on positive discrimination, as it opens the candidate / legacy to 'the only reason they were there is that they are X minority'.

> While the percentage of female lawyers has increased slowly over the past decade (31% in 2010 vs. 37% in 2020), recent gains among people of color are minimal. Just 5% of all lawyers are Black, the same percentage as 10 years ago

Statistically closer to 2%.

I am all for having a female black supreme court justice, if they're the top candidate. But, it has to begin with better representation at the grassroots level first.

It is admittedly higher at Ivy law league schools it is 0.73*11 = 8%, but these are representative of the sub-25 yr old population which isn't being considered for the role.

With 1/9 being 11%, having 1 black person on the supreme court would be the closest to accurate representation. From the perspective of equity, black people are not underrepresented in the supreme court.

Supreme court justices should be determined by ability, not racial/gender quotas. And there is already a black SC justice.

> determined by ability, not racial/gender quotas

Yeah, I have no dog in this fight.

I was merely pointing out, that the case for diversity as championed by Biden (or his cabinet/loudest supporters) contradicts his choice to push for a candidate that would lead to over-representation of a certain community in the Supreme Court.

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