The Supreme Court and the Limits of Descriptive Representation

Gender, Race, and Interruptions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

“…For the nominees, being interrupted may stall their efforts to overcome the competence bias women and people of color face in interviews across professions (Boyd, Collins, and Ringhand 2018;Christensen, Szmer, and Stritch 2012;Haynie 2002;Lawless 2004;Nelson 2015). More broadly, since legitimacy and public support rest on representative inclusion in governing institutions (Badas and Stauffer 2018;Barnes 2016;Clayton, O'Brien, and Piscopo 2018;Harris and Sen 2019;Means, Eslich, and Prado 2019;Scherer 2023;Stauffer 2021;Widner 2023), public displays of bias against women and people of color can result in lower rates of ambition for members of those groups (Fox and Lawless 2014;Williams 2008) and aggravate a sense that our government does not represent them (Campbell and Wolbrecht 2006).…”