How policy influence varies with race and gender in the US courts of appeals

Abstract

Even when women and people of color achieve positions of political power, institutional norms may combine with social constructions of difference to create a system in which power is distributed disproportionately. Such a pattern is evident in the US courts of appeals. Each case is resolved by a panel of three judges who also decide whether the opinion should be binding precedent (i.e., published) or not. I theorized that the variety of views and extended deliberation often attributed to diversity in a small-group environment depressed the rate of publication if judges were willing to compromise on the outcome but less willing to publish an opinion after such compromise. Using a massive original dataset of virtually all dispositive circuit opinions from 2002 to 2012, I found that homogeneous panels (98% of which are composed of white men) shaped policy more frequently than diverse panels.