One of the biggest political issues in 2020 has been the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court of the United States.
Despite her lack of judicial experience, President Donald Trump nominated Barrett to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. Now being recently nominated by Trump and confirmed by the Senate to the Supreme Court, Barrett reflects the state of white privilege in America. While Barrett is obviously an intelligent person, having graduated at the top of her class from Notre Dame University, this does not necessarily mean that she is the most qualified person to be appointed to such a powerful position of authority as the Supreme Court.
If the Supreme Court was filled with people of color who also do not have much experience within the judicial system or positions of leadership, there would be no room for suspicion of white privilege being given. However, most of the few people of color who have been appointed in the past have had a far greater amount of experience under their belt prior to their appointments.
Eighty-five percent of the federal judges appointed by Trump through July 7 are white, with only 15 percent of a different race or ethnicity, according to Pew Research Center. There are currently only two sitting supreme court justices who are people of color. Clarence Thomas is just the second African American to be appointed to the Supreme Court and Sonia Sotomayor is the first Hispanic. As if that information wasn’t shocking enough, no African American woman has ever been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in history.
The first African American female mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina Vi Lyles worked her way up to this position through years of efforts, experience, leadership and creating plans to make the city a better place. Even just to become a mayor, which is of course a huge position of leadership but not to the extent of power as a Supreme Court justice, Lyles worked for years for the city of Charlotte as a budget analyst and director, assistant city manager, consultant director, Outreach Director for the 2012 Democratic National Convention; all this before she was even elected to the Charlotte City Counsel in 2013.
Although Barrett’s career is impressive, having been a law professor at Notre Dame University from 2002 to 2017, besides being a clerk for U.S. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia for one year each, she does not have a vast array of qualifications to lead in such a high position of authority.
In contrast, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had already worked as an assistant attorney general of Missouri, a legislative assistant to the Senate Commerce Committee and assistant secretary of education for the Office of Civil Rights, all before being nominated by former U.S. President George H. W. Bush for a judgeship on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Finally, long after he had made these achievements, he was nominated to the Supreme Court by Bush to replace Thurgood Marshall who was the first African American on the Supreme Court who also worked his way up prior to his appointment.
Sure, Barrett worked hard to get where she is, but what the lack of diversity within the judiciary system reveals is that people of color unfortunately have to jump through much more hoops and achieve far greater feats. If this was not true, there would have already been numerous African American women on the Supreme Court by now.
By Trump nominating Barrett, it gives even more evidence of white privilege and, due to these being lifetime appointments, only gives African American women more of a disadvantage in this country.
Photo by Tate Walden
