Black Judges Reversed On Appeal More Than Whites

Black judges are significantly more likely to be reversed on appeal than white judges, according to Harvard researcher Maya Sen’s analysis of about 1,000 federal judges. Notably, the racial gap exists even when accounting for ideological differences. This comes despite the uptick in black judges appointed to the federal bench. “It seems to be true that these judges are voting in different directions, and that they’re introducing this diverse viewpoint,” Sen told NPR. “But what does that actually mean if that diverse viewpoint is then eventually overruled by higher courts and these higher courts are less diverse?” “NPR’s Shankar Vedantam says that having a diverse bench might not produce the diversity of views that we want, “because the judiciary as a whole may not be willing or may not be able to accept those views.”