Choosing Supremes On The Basis Of Race And Sex

There are conditions under which it may be permissible to take such biological characteristics into account. This is not one of them. We have a black Justice, and we have female justices. The case for a specifically black-and-female Justice is weak. Furthermore and of course: choosing a pool based on talent, then applying a small multiplier to members of underrepresented groups that make the cut is one thing. Deciding ahead of time to limit the field to the small intersection of two such groups is something else entirely. This is more-or-less outright appointment on the basis of race and sex.

   This is also, of course, predicated on the acceptance of a progressive-left / identity-politics idea that almost nobody else accepts: a strong version of "intersectionality." In its weak form, it's not a bad idea: sometimes different disadvantages can interact in ways that aren't just additive: e.g. black women may face special disadvantages that aren't reducible to disadvantages attendant on being black, nor to those attendant on being female. But, as usual, even when progressivism manages to have an insight, it blows it by blowing it out of proportion. The version of the idea one actually tends to encounter is: it is impossible to understand or mitigate any one of the left's tangle of favored '-isms' without addressing them all--because intersectionality! And that's just a flat-out ridiculous idea. Also: a blueprint for failure.

   At any rate: this seems like yet another terrible decision from the Biden team.

   But, hey, this is your blue future, bigot. Get used to it.