Selecting for the Supreme Court ... and Perhaps Universities

It took a while for me to decide that this article by David G. Savage in the San Francisco Chronicle was not a parody. It is nonetheless worth reading carefully. Much of it will sound familiar to those who are aware of the ongoing debate about how university students and faculty should be selected.

The article begins:

"Justice Sonia Sotomayor will bring something new to the U.S. Supreme Court, far beyond her being its first Latina member."

And what will she bring? Savage approvingly lists the attributes that will justify her appointment to the Supreme Court.

• She will be the only judge whose first language is not English.
• She is diabetic.
• She grew up in a housing project where drugs and crime were more common than "Ivy League scholarly success".
• Her SAT scores were not very good but she managed to graduate first in her class at Princeton.
• "[She] is also a divorced woman with no children but a close relationship with an extended family.
  "She is a modern woman with a nontraditional family," said Sylvia Lazos, a law professor at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas. "She is much more reflective of contemporary American society than the other justices, like Alito and Roberts."
  She was referring to Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, both of whom are married and have two children. The court soon is expected to face a series of cases involving the legal rights of other nontraditional families with gay and lesbian couples. "
• She has had trouble paying her mortgage and credit cards.
• She has been a prosecutor and a trial judge.
• She will be one of two minorities on the court, the other being Clarence Thomas, and the only one who supports Affirmative Action. Apparently Jews, Italians and WASPs are not minorities.

So Sotomayor is qualified for the highest judicial office in the United States because she is a speaker of English as a second language, a diabetic, not a good test taker but hard working, divorced, childless, a member of a recognised minority, a supporter of Affirmative Action and a poor financial manager.

The time will come, I suspect, when these will be essential qualifications for faculty positions in the US and elsewhere.

And will someone please explain to me why Sotomayor's childlessness is more reflective of contemporary American society than Roberts's and Alito's two children apiece. Or is Professor Lazos living in a parallel universe where the American fertility rate is zero?