Arnold Must Asian Up
March 23, 2007
I admit it would be nice to be called “your honor.’ I’ll settle for “your amokness.” The overeducated, overachievers of the legal profession are upset about our underrepresentation among the ranks of judges in California.
The numbers stink, especially in the Bay Area.
While two of seven California Supreme Court judges are Asian American (Associate Justices Ming Chin and Joyce Kennard), look below them at the Superior Court level.
Where did all the Asians go?
In San Francisco, where 31 percent of the population is APA, there are just six Asian American judges, or 12 percent of the total number of Superior Court judges.
Santa Clara County (31 percent APA) has just 4 percent who are APA judges.
Alameda County (25 percent APA) has 7 percent.
San Mateo County (25 percent APA) has 4 percent.
It’s pretty much par for the bench. A state report showed that of 1,600 judges in California, 70 percent are white and 73 percent are men.
Does the judicial system in the New California, where the minorities are the majority, sound like a throwback to the Old South?
A “Yes, massa” will do.
I know it’s hard to get worked up about affirmative action for lawyers.
It’s important to realize who gets hurt the most when APA lawyers don’t become judges.
Make a selfish guess.
It’s us, of course, the potential defendants, and victims of crime, court workers, or anyone else subject to a ruling made by a judge who may have ruled otherwise, or with greater sensitivity had he or she been an Asian American judge.
NO QUOTA MONGERING HERE
I can already hear the counter-whine from folks who say the numbers imply that we’re advocating a racial quota for judges.
I admit this was a problem even for me, a surprise given that I am the self-anointed “Mr. Affirmative Action Anonymous,” a recovering willing co-dependent who took intravenous advantage of every affirmative action program ever afforded me.
I wasn’t willing to let the lawyers gain my support just on the numbers alone.
After all, if a fair white judge is out there wouldn’t you rather have that judge than any Asian in a black robe?
Frankly, I’d rather have a guilt-ridden white judge than some hot-shot, overachieving Asian American judge who may feel like he has to overcompensate by being overly tough on another Asian.
Perhaps you’ve noticed it in other fields. There is sometimes slim allegiance among the careerist overachievers to such notions as solidarity and brotherhood. In fact, I’ve frequently seen Asian Americans treat other Asian Americans with profound unfairness.
Increasingly these days, I find Asian American values and attitudes have undergone real changes. As a native-born Asian American, do you find yourself less tolerant of accented folks and their ways? Be honest.
And what if your Asian American judge ends up being someone like conservative John Yoo, the former pro-torture adviser to Bush who teaches law at Boalt. I’d fear him over a standard-issue white judge.
You see, race suddenly doesn’t matter.
Not like politics.
ARNOLD THE ARBITER
I asked my APA lawyer friends about the lack of judicial appointments and their most persuasive point was that cultural representation and sensitivity were too important to ignore.
But they couldn’t reconcile the power of politics and the possibility that an Asian American could be no better — and maybe even worse than an existing white male judge. (Anyone want to be the Asian American Ward Connerly?)
That easily can happen given that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has the keys to the closet with all the extra gavels and black robes.
By August, Schwarzenegger will handpick some 50 judges to the bench.
In doing so, he becomes the judicial master, defining the legal landscape for the state for at least a generation.
So far, Arnold’s record is not so hot.
His minority appointments are higher than the percentage of the eligible minority attorneys who are members of the state bar. Of 209 judges he’s appointed, 39 of them, or 19 percent were Asian, black or Latino.
The state bar is just 11 percent Latino, Asian and black.
But don’t let Arnold spin you.
In the end, numbers do matter.
And the proper number to consider is the majority of minorities in the state, over 50 percent.
That’s the reflection on the mirror that counts. The people of the state, not just the attorneys are impacted by the governor’s appointees.
And while voters can choose to end a bad judge’s tenure every six years, the power of incumbency makes it nearly impossible.
That’s why the appointments are important.
Schwarzenegger has to Asian up and meet diversity’s demands quickly.
In the past few weeks, the governor has made Sharon Majors-Lewis (a San Diego chief deputy district attorney who happens to be black) his new judicial appointments secretary.
That makes her the gatekeeper: the one who decides which applicants get final interviews.
Knowing the lack of representation of APA judges, will Majors-Lewis deliver? Or will she become Schwarzenegger’s handy scapegoat?
At the very least, it sets up yet another interesting moment in black/Asian American relations.
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