Justice Sonia Sotomayor revealed that the Supreme Court adopted a new format for oral arguments after academic evidence emerged that female justices were interrupted more often than their male counterparts.
Appearing at a New York University School of Law event Wednesday, Sotomayor explained that Chief Justice John Roberts became “much more sensitive” to the gender dynamics at play in the high court following a 2017 study, which concludes:
Our findings clearly establish that women on the Supreme Court are interrupted at a markedly higher rate during oral arguments than men. Additionally, both male Justices and male advocates interrupt women more frequently than they interrupt other men. In other words, women are more likely to be the interruptee, while men are more likely to be the interrupter.
That study prompted Roberts to rethink how the Court should structure its proceedings. CBS News explains:
Under the new format for arguments, lawyers have two minutes at the start of their argument to make opening remarks without interruption, after which questioning by the justices in its traditional free-for-all begins. Then, once the attorney’s time for argument has ended, each justice has the chance to ask questions in order of seniority, beginning with the chief justice.
Sotomayor told the audience at NYU that the problem Roberts moved to address exists in society writ large. “Most of the time women say things and they are not heard in the same way as men who might say the identical thing,” she said.
CNN adds:
The new system has seemed to please Justice Clarence Thomas in particular. For years he rarely asked questions from the bench, and this term he has become an active participant and opened each set of arguments with a question.
Sotomayor was also asked about the importance of diversity on the bench. She said that professional diversity should be a particular point of emphasis. CNN reports:
She noted that when Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed, “we lost our only civil rights lawyer” and that currently there is no other justice who has “been in the trenches” on civil rights, or immigration, or environmental law.
“I do worry that the authorities who are selecting judges are not paying enough attention to that kind of diversity as well,” Sotomayor said. She said that she works to hire law clerks with diverse backgrounds and selects her audiences carefully to spread her message.
Sotomayor also revealed that she feels extra pressure because she is the first Latina to serve on the Supreme Court.
“If you are a person of color, you have to work harder than everybody else to succeed,” Sotomayor said. “It’s the nature of — the competitive nature of our society — where you have to prove yourself every day.”