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My Brennan Center colleagues Jamie Mass and Chihiro Isozaki recently published a new analysis that explains racial, ethnic, gender, and occupational diversity in state supreme courts across the country. The numbers reveal a clear disconnect between the makeup of many of these powerful institutions and the communities they serve.
Eighteen states have no judges of color on their high courts, including 12 states where people of color make up at least 20 percent of the population. There are no women judges on the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals, and there are no women of color on the state supreme courts in 25 states. There is only one female judge in eight states.
The report also addresses disparities in occupational backgrounds. For example, while 39% of current judges are former prosecutors, only 10% are former public defenders.
There are many reasons to value diversity on the court, from building public trust in the court to providing role models. But having a wider range of life experiences reflected on jurors also helps them do a better job of getting things right.
An example that has always stuck with me goes back to the 2008-2009 term on the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the only female justice on the Supreme Court. That year, the court heard a case involving a 13-year-old girl who was strip searched by an administrator at a girls’ school. The girl was forced to remove her underwear, shake her bra, and move her panties aside, all based on another student’s accusation that the girl provided her with prescription-strength ibuprofen.
The oral argument at Safford Unified School District vs. Redding Things didn’t seem to go well for the girl. Several judges laughed at the locker room antics, and Justice Stephen Breyer expressed skepticism about the harm, asking, “Why is stripping down to your underwear a big deal?”
After the argument, Ginsburg spoke to Supreme Court reporter Joan Biskupic about the case and the other justices. “They were never 13-year-old girls,” Ginsburg said in an interview. “It’s a very sensitive age for girls. I don’t think some people, including my colleagues, fully understood.”
We don’t know exactly what happened behind closed doors, but it seems clear that Ginsburg’s voice made a difference. The court ultimately agreed that the girl’s rights had been violated. Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented. Ginsburg and Justices John Paul Stevens would have gone further and ruled that the rights at issue are clearly established and school officials should not be subject to qualified immunity.
As someone who was once a 13-year-old girl myself, I appreciated the court’s eventual recognition that the girl had experienced the search as “embarrassing, frightening and humiliating.” It was important that Ginsburg was seated at the table.
Washington Supreme Court Chief Justice Stephen C. Gonzalez expressed similar views about his court in an interview. state court report “It’s important that decisions are made by people who have different experiences, who have lived in poverty themselves, who have lived life as a person of color, who are gay, and understand what it’s like,” he explained.
Among other things, Gonzalez argued that having these perspectives will be helpful to all judges on the court. “Even when I’m in the room, the majority of voices change,” he said, referring to his background as a Latino man. “It changes the very nature of the discussion. I’m a big fan of that inclusivity and think it makes us all better off.”
Finally, I would like to end by acknowledging the elephant in the room. The Trump administration is working to dismantle one of its signature initiatives: diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), thereby putting at risk many of the programs that have helped build a more diverse bench over time. Isozaki and Muth discuss this trend in a companion article. state court reportargued that the government was wrong on both law and policy. But they also point out that many stakeholders, both inside and outside the courts, continue to work towards creating a more inclusive justice system. “In other words, the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion are here to stay,” they argue.
Alicia Bannon is the editor-in-chief state court report. She is also the director of justice programs at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Recommended quote: Alicia Bannon bench versatilitySᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (December 11, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/diversity-bench
