Gender Preferences Indeed

Everyone is thinking about who might be or should be the next Supreme Court Justice, and some folks are decrying the looming discrimination facing white male candidates.

Only, Adam Serwer looked it up and the numbers are a bit staggering...

There have been 110 Justices on the Supreme Court. Of those, two have been women, and two have been black. The other 106 have been white men.

I'm gonna let Ezra Klein bring it home:

And though few would publicly argue that the Court has a duty to be liberal or conservative (or stacked with young appointees who have very low cholesterol), the institution does have to be considered legitimate. It is responsible for a country that's 51 percent female and whose law graduates are 48 percent female. Its highest profile cases revolve exclusively around things that happen in a woman's body. If we were aware of those facts and were stocking the Court from scratch, there is no doubt that we would strive for more gender balance.

Viewed from that perspective, the situation clarifies considerably. The reason white men are disadvantaged in this nomination process is pretty simple: They are not, right now, what the Court needs. They are not the best candidates for the job.