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January 25, 2006

ABA judicial qualification rankings are biased

The NY times discusses in today's Op-Ed that the judicial qualifications are biased against those from conservative backgrounds. Interestingly, this bias is bigger during times when that bias is likely to have consequence (like different parties controlling the White House and the Senate) than when it is unlikely to matter as it is today, when the Republicans control all Federal elected bodies.

Senate Majority Project has a few words from the ABA staff asserting that, the ABA is in fact a non-political organization.

This reminds me a bit of statistical discrimination claims. Essentially, when suing an employer for discrimination (age, gender, race, etcetera), if you can use statistical techniques to show that treatment of your group was highly improbable, you can shift the burden of proof to the defendant. That's what should happen here. The ABA should publicly explain why top-notch legal minds, as measured by looking backwards at citations by other judges, got bad ABA ratings. Because if they don't measure expected judicial contribution, why bother having it.

{corrected the use of smaller when I meant bigger in the first paragraph, thanks to M for the tip}

Posted by OneEyedMan at January 25, 2006 9:01 AM

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Posted by: -M- at January 25, 2006 5:50 PM

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