Diverse and Inclusive High Courts: A Global and Intersectional Perspective

Authors

Alice J. Kang, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
Miki Caul Kittilson, Arizona State UniversityFollow
Valerie Hoekstra, Arizona State University
Maria C. Escobar-Lemmon, Texas A & M University - College Station

ORCID IDs

Hoekstra http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2641-8451

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2020

Citation

Politics, Groups, and Identities (2020) 8(4): 812–821

doi: 10.1080/21565503.2020.1782948

Section: Dialogue: Diversity on the Judiciary

Comments

Copyright 2020, Western Political Science Association. Published by Routledge/Taylor and Francis. Used by permission.

Abstract

Critical race feminists call attention to the ways in which multiple and overlapping forms of privilege and discrimination shape individual experiences and perspectives. In this article, we argue that judiciaries cannot be fully inclusive if their composition does not reflect a society’s intersecting sources of disadvantage. We consider intersectional inclusion on high courts from a compar-ative perspective. Most existing practices of representation on high courts promote the inclusion of groups as if they are internally homogenous. We explore the attempts at and successes of promoting intersectional inclusion in the context of the high courts of Canada and South Africa. Although the inclusion of marginalized subgroups such as black women has not been automatic in South Africa, its progress is further along than Canada in promoting intersectional diversity on the highest court.