Judging Women

52 Pages Posted: 25 Oct 2010 Last revised: 25 Dec 2014

See all articles by Stephen J. Choi

Stephen J. Choi

New York University School of Law

Mitu Gulati

University of Virginia School of Law

Mirya R. Holman

Tulane University - Department of Political Science

Eric A. Posner

University of Chicago - Law School

Date Written: September 28, 2009

Abstract

Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s assertion that female judges might be “better” than male judges has generated accusations of sexism and potential bias. An equally controversial claim is that male judges are better than female judges because the latter have benefited from affirmative action. These claims are susceptible to empirical analysis. Primarily using a dataset of all the state high court judges in 1998-2000, we estimate three measures of judicial output: opinion production, outside state citations, and co-partisan disagreements. We find that the male and female judges perform at about the same level. Roughly similar findings show up in data from the U.S. Court of Appeals and the federal district courts.

Keywords: judicial performance, gender, citations, judges

JEL Classification: K41

Suggested Citation

Choi, Stephen J. and Gulati, Mitu and Holman, Mirya R. and Posner, Eric A., Judging Women (September 28, 2009). U of Chicago Law & Economics, Olin Working Paper No. 483, NYU School of Law, Public Law Research Paper No. 09-54, NYU Law and Economics Research Paper No. 09-38, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1479724 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1479724

Stephen J. Choi (Contact Author)

New York University School of Law ( email )

40 Washington Square South
New York, NY 10012-1099
United States

Mitu Gulati

University of Virginia School of Law ( email )

580 Massie Road
Charlottesville, VA 22903
United States

Mirya R. Holman

Tulane University - Department of Political Science ( email )

Tulane University
316 Norman Mayer Building
New Orleans, LA 70118
United States

Eric A. Posner

University of Chicago - Law School ( email )

1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-0425 (Phone)
773-702-0730 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/posner-e/

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