Qualifications And “Diversity”

It is not surprising and, frankly, not of much interest that the Congressional Black Caucus opposes the nomination of California Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown to the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. (Via Howard Bashman) What is of interest are the arguments, and their implications.

Rep. Maxine (the waters run shallow but loud) Waters (D-Calif.) said it doesn’t matter that Justice Brown would become only the second black woman on the D.C. court. “That does not mean that any of us would and will give a pass to an unqualified nominee simply because she is a minority candidate,” she said. We can leave aside the fact that Rep. Waters and friends usually regard qualifications as a white conspiracy to exclude minorities, for it is quite clear that when Rep. Waters calls Justice Brown “unqualified” she is not speaking of qualifications at all. All she means is that Justice Brown is conservative; “qualifications” has come to mean nothing more than “agrees with me,”

as the cited Associated Press article notes:

The black Democrats said Brown’s conservative credentials make her unfit for the D.C. judgeship.

Also interesting is the following comment:

Bush “hasn’t fooled us,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C. “She’s cut from the same cloth as Clarence Thomas.”

Among other things this means that a judge “cut from the same cloth” as a sitting Supreme Court Justice is not qualified to serve on an appellate court. Presumably Del. Norton would have opposed Justice Brown’s nomination to serve on the hightest court in California if she could have.

What gives here? Does “diversity” not matter on these courts? Could it possible be that race is not a valid proxy for “diversity” after all? What if the Democrats successfully filibuster her appointment, and Ms. Brown were then to seek a faculty appointment in a law school. Would those of the Norton/Waters ilk oppose her appointment, and if so, would they do so because of or despite their views on “diversity”? If Justice Brown is not qualified to be a judge because of her views, shouldn’t law schools that aim to produce professional leaders examine the views of their student applicants in order to weed out those with views that impose ceilings on their future success? And why hire faculty who might inculcate those limiting views?

If a government agency — say the EEOC, which Del. Norton headed at one point — were under pressure to increase the “diversity” of its work force and it was presented with two applicants, one who agreed with Del. Norton on civil rights but whose skin did not look like hers, and another whose skin but not his views resembled Del. Norton’s, which one would contribute most to “diversity”?

In my immediately previous post I quoted the very same Del. Norton asserting that government agencies could not achieve a diverse work force “unless agency heads set diversity goals and enforce them.”

In that post I wondered how enforced diversity goals differed from quotas. Now I wonder what she means by “diversity.”