I am going to summarize a story that George W. Bush told in his autobiography, "Decision Points." When Sandra Day O'Connor decided to retire from the Supreme Court, the president asked for a list of potential replacements from all types of backgrounds. He narrowed this list down to five - of which one was a woman. From there he narrowed the list to three - and the woman did not make the top three. He finally picked a judge, John Roberts, but was forced to use this pick to replace Chief Justice Rehquist who had died suddenly.
For some reason - perhaps because he was a Republican and knew he would be under more scrutiny, perhaps because it was what he truly believed - he felt that he should replace O'Connor with a female so that the court would not be completely male. Instead of turning to the woman who had made the top five list, he continued searching for another woman to fill the spot. The choice he made was completely villified. The poor woman had to withdraw her nomination because of unjustified bad press.
In the end, the president picked the second choice on his original list of three - a man.
This story, in my opinion, is a wonderful example of the dangers of allowing affirmative action to crowd out rational judgment in our lives. Imagine that the president was just simply any old employer and review his steps.
1. He had an opening. He asked his staff to pull up strong resumes from people of various backgrounds - including differing races, genders, job histories, religions, and so on. Using criteria he had set up in place for the job, they narrowed the list.
2. They narrowed and narrowed. There were probably many women on the original list, but with each narrowing some dropped off (as did some men). By the time the final five were cut down to three, two, or one (depending on how you look at it), there was just one woman to cut. There were four men to cut. How's that for fairness for you? Still, the point is that the president performed his due diligence and came up with two candidates that stood out - both men.
3. When the president chose to have a woman for his second justice, he once again began the search. This made no sense to me - he had a ranking of candidates from his previous search, why not just pick the second on the list? Or why not pick the woman who had made the top five? The answer to the second question is easy - because she was not the best choice. As it stood, the best choice was a man. The president went in search of another candidate who could be both a best choice and a woman. The problem was, he had already pulled the most qualified candidates in the country in his original search. Was it possible he had missed someone?
4. He thought so, but the rest of the country did not. In narrowing his search to women, he also allowed himself to look narrowly AT women. Based on his version of events, it seemed he was so desperate to find a qualified woman, that he threw caution to the wind in his choice.
Now, I am not saying that there are no qualified women out there to sit on the Supreme Court. It may very well be the case that there are qualified women who did not share in the president's philosophical outlook (I can name two because they both became justices during his successor's presidency). Perhaps we can criticize that both the president's and his advisors' circles did not include enough females to produce as candidates. The reasons can never be known - and I do NOT think that the top three choices were men because of some sort of bias.
In fact, my point is that bias in the other direction, looking specifically for a woman, ended up hurting the president. And, had his choice been confirmed, she may have hurt the Supreme Court - if the criticism of her was fair.
I'd like to point out this little story as a lesson against the use of affirmative action in any respects - because if it can backfire against the most powerful man at the world, someone who has access to a pool of the best and brightest candidates, it can backfire any and everywhere else.
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