Supreme Choices

Here's one on the appointee for Justice Souter's Supreme court seat (too bad my 3 hour wait on the steps of the Court last tuesday didn't earn me a seconds viewing time at the last of these 9 together...)From the Washington Post article (Sunday May 3rd) by Christina Boyd - Washington U, and Lee Epstein - Northwestern Law, "When Women Rule, It Makes a Difference"

"In research that we conducted with our colleague Andrew D. Martin, we studied the votes of federal court of appeals judges in many areas of the law, from environmental cases to capital punishment and sex discrimination. For the most part, we found no difference in the voting patterns of male and female judges, except when it comes to sex discrimination cases. There, we found that female judges are approximately 10 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party bringing the discrimination claim. We also found that the presence of a female judge causes male judges to vote differently. When male and female judges serve together to decide a sex discrimination case, the male judges are nearly 15 percent more likely to rule in favor of the party alleging discrimination than when they sit with male judges only. This holds true even after we account for judges' ideological leanings."