{"id":9756,"date":"2010-04-26T18:19:45","date_gmt":"2010-04-26T23:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=9756"},"modified":"2010-04-26T18:21:34","modified_gmt":"2010-04-26T23:21:34","slug":"sykes-sotomayor-and-women-judges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/04\/sykes-sotomayor-and-women-judges\/","title":{"rendered":"Sykes, Sotomayor, and Women Judges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I had the opportunity last week to attend Women Judges\u2019 Night, an event that the Association for Women Lawyers presents annually (indeed, this year\u2019s dinner was the thirtieth such). The Hon. Diane S. Sykes, L\u201984, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, delivered what was billed as a keynote but was also in the nature of after-dinner remarks. The speech was a very good example of either form, for reasons related to its warmth, its willingness to take on a substantive and even somewhat contentious topic, and the speaker\u2019s self-awareness and humor.<\/p>\n

Judge Sykes began with a \u201cconfess[ion]\u201d:<\/p>\n

[T]the idea of a \u201cWomen Judges Night\u201d has always made me vaguely uneasy. I\u2019m uncomfortable with the implications and consequences of gender-identity politics\u2014or any <\/em>identity politics, for that matter. When we celebrate Women Judges Night every year, what is it precisely that we\u2019re celebrating? If we\u2019re celebrating the appointment or election of women judges just because <\/em>they are women, then I think we are making a mistake about the qualities necessary in a good judge, which of course are not gender-specific. If we\u2019re celebrating the appointment and election of women judges because they subscribe to a gender-based brand of judging, then we are making an even bigger mistake about the nature of the judicial role. I don\u2019t think we\u2019re celebrating either of these things, but I do think it\u2019s important for us to be careful not to diminish the contributions of women judges by emphasizing their gender as if it had something to do with their qualifications for judicial office or has substantive significance in their work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

She would conclude with her own assessment of what the event celebrates, along the way touching upon matters from Madison to Washington, D.C.\u2014from her former court, a majority of whose justices were in attendance (viz., Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, Justice Annette K. Ziegler, and Justice Patience D. Roggensack, the last of whom introduced Judge Sykes), to the United States Supreme Court and, in particular, last year\u2019s confirmation of Justice Sonia Sotomayor.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In the former regard, Judge Sykes discussed at some length State v. Oakley<\/em>, 2001 WI 103, 245 Wis. 2d 447, 629 N.W.2d 200, a case in which, in Judge Sykes\u2019s words, \u201cthe court concluded that [a] no-procreation probation condition was constitutional\u201d in the case of a \u201cdeadbeat dad who was hopelessly and criminally in arrears on his child support.\u201d The case attracted national attention, especially because the three women on the court\u2014Chief Justice Abrahamson, Justice Bradley, and Justice Sykes\u2014dissented, while the four male justices comprised the majority. Judge Sykes maintained that the case \u201chad no gender-salient issues (assuming there is such a thing).\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Sykes then segued to a discussion of comments by now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor, during her tenure on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit: \u201c[In] words that were to go viral during the [Supreme Court] confirmation process[,] she said: \u2018I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn\u2019t lived that life.\u2019\u201d Judge Sykes discussed as well Justice Sotomayor\u2019s \u201cretrea[t] from this view during her confirmation hearings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judge Sykes would go on to give her take on the role of empathy in judging and \u201cthe question of gender and judging.\u201d Her prepared text can be found here and is well worth reading in its entirety<\/a>\u2014both for its content, well beyond what I have excerpted here, and its form.<\/p>\n

Finally, kudos to my faculty colleague, Professor Jessica E. Slavin, for her work in putting this year\u2019s Women Judges\u2019 Night together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had the opportunity last week to attend Women Judges\u2019 Night, an event that the Association for Women Lawyers presents annually (indeed, this year\u2019s dinner was the thirtieth such). The Hon. Diane S. Sykes, L\u201984, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, delivered what was billed as a keynote but was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,68,23,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism","category-judges-judicial-process","category-seventh-circuit","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9756\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}