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July 10, 2007
Why The Federalist Society Is Indeed "Particularly Unusual" On Matters Of Race And Gender Diversity
But Eugene does more; he is (among other things) defending the Federalist Society here, and from the data he has compiled, he says the following:
"I also want to suggest that one set of answers, or at least reactions, is misguided: If we're going to wonder about demographic disproportions in reputation-based legal academic contexts — such as conference invitations — it's a mistake to see the Federalist Society as particularly unusual. Our own profession's citation patterns show stunning disproportions that can't be put off to any Federalist-Society-specific practices."Perhaps Eugene has misunderstood the criticism of the Federalist Society. The criticism is of the overwhelming maleness of its invitees and management structure.
If we were to examine not citation rates but the makeup of panels and the management structures of other legal scholars' organizations, we would find something quite different from what Eugene has found. Take two examples: the American Society for Legal History and the American Law and Economics Association. (I chose these two more or less at random, after excluding an organization like the Association of American Law Schools, which articulates diversity as a core goal.) Take a look at the programs of the most recent ASLH and ALEA meetings. Take a look at the management structures of the two organizations -- ASLH and ALEA.
Isn't it interesting how different these are from the invitation and management patterns of the Federalist Society? ASLH and ALEA are, it seems to me, working to counter the very patterns of gender disparity that Eugene's citation study reveals.
What distinguishes the Federalist Society, I suggest, is that it, alone among legal scholars' groups, is not uncomfortable with the patterns of gender disparity that Eugene has identified, and is therefore not interested in working against them in its speaker choices and management structure. (I note that scholars who wish to present at ASLH and ALEA must apply to do so, and that their programs therefore do not directly reflect those organizations' invitation strategies. However, the organizations do screen the applications, approving some and declining others. I know from experience that gender and racial diversity are among the important criteria for ASLH; I suspect (but don't know for sure) that something similar is at least in the mix for ALEA too.)
This difference between the Federalists and these other organizations should not be controversial or surprising. Declining to work against broad cultural patterns of bias against traditional American targets (racial minorities and women) is, as I have always understood it, a matter of ideological commitment for the Federalists, who view goals such as racial or gender balance as the "political correctness" of affirmative action. As Eugene, presumably speaking for the Federalist Society, rather derisively put it in the title of his opening comment in this discussion, "Here We Thought That Ideological Diversity Is Good Enough." Gender and racial diversity are among the goals worth seeking for groups like ASLH and ALEA. For the Federalists, those goals are often matters of derision. They are instances of unfairness -- a visiting on today's white men of what they view as some prior generation's sins against non-whites and women. They are unjust deviations from a color-blind and gender-blind system of pure "merit."
Stated a bit differently, the Federalist Society is comfortable piggybacking on, rather than countering, whatever the American cultural dynamics are that have produced and continue to produce the citation patterns that Eugene so helpfully identifies.
To sum up: the Federalist Society's invitation patterns and management structure do roughly parallel the gender disparity in law review citation patterns. But they do not parallel the invitation patterns and management structure of other societies of legal scholarship. In that important sense -- contra Eugene's assertion -- the Federalist Society does indeed seem "particularly unusual."
UPDATE: Some data from Ann Bartow.
Posted by Eric at July 10, 2007 8:06 AM