While theoretical justifications predict that a judge's gender and race may influence judicial decisions, empirical support for these arguments has been mixed. However, recent increases in judicial diversity necessitate a reexamination of these earlier studies. Rather than examining individual judges on a single characteristic, such as gender or race alone, this research note argues that the intersection of individual characteristics may provide an alternative approach for evaluating the effects of diversity on the federal appellate bench. The results of cohort models examining the joint effects of race and gender suggest that minority female judges are more likely to support criminal defendants' claims when compared to their colleagues on the bench, even after controlling for other important factors. This suggests that our understanding of judicial behaviors may be assisted by the inclusion of how individual characteristics overlap rather than examining those characteristics alone.
Objective. This article explores the impact of race, gender, age, and intersectionality on attorneys' perceptions of unfair treatment by other lawyers and on satisfaction with their legal careers. Method. Using an original survey of over 2,000 attorneys, ordered logit is utilized to analyze attorneys' perceptions of disparate treatment based on race, gender, and age and to test whether minority female attorneys face unique barriers within their professional relationships. Results. We find that minority women are more likely than others to perceive unfair treatment based on race, gender, and age. This also contributes to lower career satisfaction for attorneys who are women of color than for other groups. Conclusion. The findings have important implications for understanding attorney relationships and potential barriers for minority groups within a profession's culture. These obstacles not only impact attorneys, but could also influence attorney choice for citizens and the prospects for a representative judiciary.
We know little about the amount of career preparation offered to students in political science departments. This lack of information is particularly troubling given the state of the current job market and the growth of applied degree programs on university campuses. To address this issue, this article presents the results of a December 2010 survey of 279 political science department chairs that asked questions about the level of career preparation in their respective departments. Based on our empirical findings, we believe that political science departments are not doing enough to address their students' career preparation. Our results demonstrate that most departments rely on voluntary internships and faculty advisers to address career-related issues for political science majors. Only a few departments use required internships, required resumes, specific classes related to career preparation, and social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to support career preparation. We also found substantial differences in career preparation across department type (BA, MA, and PhD) and between public and private universities, urban and rural universities, and universities with different average SAT scores. Our findings should interest faculty and administrators who are concerned with different approaches to career preparation on college campuses.
Judicial behavior is contingent on case salience. Unfortunately, existing measures of case salience have met with some skepticism. After discussing the characteristics of an ideal measure of salience, the authors construct a new measure of case salience. This new measure expands on prior studies by examining coverage in four diverse newspapers and includes coverage anywhere in the paper, instead of concentrating on front-page coverage only. By developing this new measure, the authors uncover patterns about national media coverage of the Court and provide a potentially more useful measure of case salience.
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