Talk:Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States

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Sherman Minton as a Catholic

I was reading this section about Roman Catholics on the court and noticed Sherman Minton was listed there. I find this just a bit curious. Minton was, if anything, agnostic. He shunned religion almost his entire life, and only, very rarely, attended mass with his wife following his retirement from the court. He was in no way a practicing Catholic while he was a sitting Justice. At best, he was nominally Catholic, and arguably he only attended Mass in his retirement to please his wife. Does anyone else have an opinion on this? I think he should be removed the table, but the information in prose is acceptable. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 17:29, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

• The contention of his being Catholic is sourced - I'd appreciate a source for his Catholicism being nominal, and for his agnosticism in practice. bd2412 T 15:19, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
  • Sorry for just replying! Radcliff, William Franklin (1996). Sherman Minton: Indiana's Supreme Court Justice. Indianapolis: Guild Press of Indiana. ISBN 1-878208-81-0, page 10. Also: Gugin, Linda & St. Clair, James E. (1997). Sherman Minton: New Deal Senator, Cold War Justice. Indiana Historical Society. ISBN 0871951169., p.304. I am the primary author of Minton's wikipedia bio. His biographers agree, he was nominally catholic. He stopped attending church as a child following his mother's death. (His parents were protestant) He openly spoke against Christianity on several occasions. His wife was catholic, and he began to attended mass with her only after his retirement. He was certainly not a practicing catholic while on the court, so I think to include list him as a Catholic justice is misleading. Afterwards, he could be called catholic as he began attending mass - so that benefit of doubt can be given. The bios do not use the term "nominal", but its a fair assessment. I think its fair to at least note he was not a practicing Catholic while a justice. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 16:15, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
    • The article currently says: Some accounts note that Sherman Minton, appointed in 1949, was also a Catholic; however, during his time on the Court he was a Protestant, though his wife's Catholic faith was noted at the time in relation to the notion of a "Catholic seat". Minton joined his wife's Catholic faith in 1961, five years after he retired from the Court. I think this already does inform the reader that he was not a practising Catholic while on the Court. If you feel it can be expressed more informatively, please feel free to edit as you see fit. Cheers! bd2412 T 16:54, 10 November 2010 (UTC)
      • I agree, my sole point was that I don't think his name should be included in the table that lists catholic justices. He was not a catholic justice. I think the prose in the article is fine. I don't even really think its a very big, deal. I initially just raised the point here because I was curious if anyone else felt the same. I am inclined to leave it as it is you believe it to be ok. —Charles Edward ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 18:10, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Native language

I'm away from my sources right now, but I seem to recall from the Oxford Guide to the Supreme Court that Frankfurter was the only justice who was not a native speaker of English. Should this be mentioned, perhaps in the Geographic section? Magidin (talk) 05:33, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

If you can provide the source, I think that would be fine. Thanks for finding another area of demographic diversity to plumb! bd2412 T 13:22, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I checked the Oxford Guide, but I cannot substantiate the claim that Frankfurter is the only justice whose native language was not English; of the foreign-born he is almost certainly the only one, since the only other justice to be born in a non-English speaking country, Brewer, moved to the US at about a year old. That English was Frankfurter's second language is mentioned in passing in the Opinions, Style of entry; page 611 of the 1992 edition, mentions: "Frankfurter is a special case. English was his second language; his feel for words has been compared to Nabokov's. That comparison is extravagant, however, unless it merely stresses Frankfurter's fascination with ornate words, such as adumbrate, excogitate, quixotism, and sub silentio." So while Frankfurter was definitely not a native speaker of English, and is likely to be the only one, I cannot positively reference that he was the only one. Nonetheless, it might be worth mentioning that he was not. Magidin (talk) 00:34, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

In the case of Brewer, you should be careful. Many native-born citizens whose parents are immigrants speak their parents' language(s) at home, only learning English on the playground or in their first year of school. In cities like NY and LA you will find whole neighborhoods like this; formerly it was also common on the parts of the frontier homesteaded by immigrants. But this is WP:OR.

One could infer from the article (although it doesn't say -- it really should) that Brewer was a native-born US citizen because his parents were citizens. Was he brought to the US before he learned much Greek? Also, what was Frankfurter's native language, Hochdeutsch or Yiddish or both? Is Sotomayor's native language English or Spanish or both? A section named "Linguistic background" would be of interest, since the court will be deciding some immigration and naturalization matters soon. — Solo Owl (talk) 19:53, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Widows and widowers.

In light of the death of Justice Ginsburg's husband, I am interested in appending the section covering marriage to indicate which Justices were widowers while on the bench. If anyone knows offhand of a Justice having lost their wife during their term of service, please let me know. bd2412 T 13:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe Oliver Wendell Holmes did, since there are reports of James Clark McReynolds crying at her funeral; I'll double check that next week. William Rehnquist's wife died in 1991, while he was Chief Justice. Magidin (talk) 16:25, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Images

While I respect the opinion of BD2412, that the informal pictures of some justices livens up the page. I feel that they undermine the respect usually aforded to a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, especially since most of the images used in this article are portraits of the justices in their judicial robes. Also I am not saying that BD2412 has issued any bias but there might be precieved bias with the informal images used only with female justices.--TriiipleThreat (talk) 14:04, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't aiming for a gender distinction; I would just as soon have a picture of a male justice with their appointing president, if one is available. I just thought those two pictures (Reagan/O'Connor and Obama/Sotomayor) to be particularly good pictures. It is also difficult to come upon good pictures of past Justices with their appointing presidents. Here, for example, is an image of Thurgood Marshall with LBJ, but it's not particularly clear. bd2412 T 17:29, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I didnt think that you were I just didnt want the article to be precieved that way. And for the record, I think you have done a terrific job with this article. Kudos. --TriiipleThreat (talk) 17:54, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Rehnquist's page has a photo of him being sworn in by Burger, with Reagan and Scalia in the frame; not as informal as O'Connor and Sotomayor ones, but a bit less than the portraits. Magidin (talk) 18:14, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Rehnquist is not particularly demographically interesting, though. O'Connor was the first woman, Sotomayor the first Hispanic. A picture of Rehnquist could conceivably fit in the religion section for his being the only Lutheran, but that is a minor distinction, and we would then have two pictures on the page with Reagan, which would seem to overstate Reagan's significance in court demographics. Nixon with Rehnquist would be more apropos, since Nixon put Rehquist on the court in the first place. bd2412 T 18:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I was thinking about the Protestant Justices section; perhaps a portrait of Swayne, then, for that section. Or the still that appears in this youtube video. It is highly unlikely that there will be anything other than portrait photographs for Justices prior to mid-20th-century in any case, just because "candid" photographs were so uncommon. Magidin (talk) 18:56, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

The Marshall/LBJ photo could be made to work if a higher quality version were available, which could be cropped and sharpened a bit. bd2412 T 19:00, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Done, by the way. bd2412 T 14:02, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Still not up to encyclopedic standards. Perhaps if you increased the gamma, those of us who cannot distinguish shades of dark gray could see it. Thanks. — Solo Owl (talk) 20:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll work on it when I get to a computer from which I can engage in that kind of tweaking. I am constrained to a degree by the quality of the original image. Cheers! bd2412 T 20:20, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Reference formatting

Just a note for someone that's better versed in formatting references used in legal articles, but someone should really work on harmonizing the reference formatting in this article. I've gone through the body text and fixed the dash errors and reformatted the dates in the footnotes. Before my editing, there were hyphens being used inappropriately and 3–4 date formats in use in the footnotes. There is still a mix of formatting styles with some using templates and the rest hand-formatted in different styles. I have no opinion on switching them all to templates, which might be easier, or to convert all of the notes to hand-formatting. I just think that the formatting should be consistent no matter the approach. Imzadi 1979 → 21:18, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I guess consistency in formatting would be nice. I plan to get this article up to featured status over the next few weeks. Cheers! bd2412 T 01:59, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, then I'll see what I can do on that note, because consistent citations are a part of the FA criteria. Imzadi 1979 → 02:01, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - let me know what formatting is best for this purpose, and I'll fix as much as I can. bd2412 T 02:06, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Discussion of use of European American on this page

Recently, User:The Universe Is Cool and I have disagreed on the use of the term "European American" to describe Justices previously identified in the article as "White" or "Caucasian". I believe the phrase "European American" is unusual as a demographic descriptor, and that the more common terms, "White" or "Caucasian", should be used. I believe that because "European American" is an unusual way to describe white people of European descent, it will tend to mislead readers into thinking that Justices described in that way were actually born in Europe, or have some other unusual connection with continental Europe beyond that of typical white people born in the United States. This concern is exacerbated by the fact that there have been several actual European-born Justices. I have reviewed the sources referenced in this article, and have searched for others, but have not found a single source referring to the Justices as "European American". I would therefore like to gauge whether there is consensus to stick with the use of "White" or "Caucasian" to describe these Justices in this article. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:14, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Discussion of this issue is ongoing at Talk:Supreme Court of the United States#Discussion of use of European American and White American on this page. bd2412 T 23:20, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Religious affiliation.

In the section Religion, it says that of the 112 justices 91 were Protestant, 13 Catholics, 8 jews and 1 without any religious affiliation. However 91+13+8+1 = 113. Either the numbers are wrong or someones religious affiliation needs to be better explained. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.209.13.190 (talk) 15:53, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Only twelve were Catholic while on the Court. Sherman Minton was a Protestant who converted to Catholicism after leaving the Court. bd2412 T 22:13, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Should Cardozo be counted as a Jewish justice in this section. He was of Jewish heritage and heavily involved in that community, but according to the rest of the article, as an adult he did not recognize that as his religion and was agnostic. It doesn't seem to fit as his "religion." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.52.160.127 (talk) 05:16, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Political affiliation

I've read recently, that in many US Supreme Court cases, the differences of opinion are often composed of a bipartisan divide, that is, a liberal view against a conservative view. Have any other WP contributors heard this idea before? If so, can you help me find reliable sources?

Five members of the current Supreme Court were appointed by Republican presidents. Four justices were nominated by a Democratic president. The standard (and simplistic) view of the current Court's politics is:

THE CONSERVATIVES: Scalia (appointed by Reagan) , Thomas (appointed by George Bush, Sr.), Alito (appointed by George W. Bush), and C. J. Roberts (appointed by George W. Bush). "SWING JUSTICE": Kennedy (appointed by Reagan). Justice Kennedy is more moderate of than the conservative justices. His views tend to be more libertarian than, for example, those of Chief Justice Roberts.

THE LIBERALS: Breyer (appointed by Clinton), Ginsburg (appointed by Clinton), Sotomayor (appointed by Obama), Kagan (appointed by Obama). University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law

On the other hand, is there a controversy over whether the above idea is true? That is, do sources generally say that liberal vs. conservative politics doesn't really enter into Supreme Court rulings, or do some say yes while others say no? --Uncle Ed (talk) 21:52, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Political affiliation is not appropriate for an article on demographics. Also, "conservative" vs. "liberal" here is not really political, but rather judicial leanings. This is discussed in the judicial leanings section of the Supreme Court article. Also note that this is the first time in many years when the political leanings of the justices match up the party affiliation of the presidents who appointed them. Prior to his retirement, John Paul Stevens was considered the "leader of the liberal wing" (appointed by Ford); Eisenhower famously said that he had only made two mistakes while in office, and both were sitting on the Supreme Court (Earl Warren and William Brennan); and another recent justice considered a solid liberal was Souter (apointed by George H.W. Bush). Also, the vast majority of cases do not break down along the traditional conservative/liberal divide. Last term, only 20% of cases were decided by a 5-4 vote, and though most did break down along the lines above, it was by far the largest percentage of such breaks in the last 10 years. I would strongly recommend reading Tom Goldstein excellent post, Everything you read about the Supreme Court is wrong, and look at the statistics compiles by SCOTUSblog.

But in any case, these discussions do not belong in this article; if anywhere, they belong in the Supreme Court of the United States article itself. Magidin (talk) 22:09, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

I agree that political affiliation goes beyond the scope of this article. Although it is not necessarily outside the realm of demographics, it is too close to the core concerns of the politics of the Supreme Court. bd2412 T 05:31, 15 January 2012 (UTC)

Children

There is discussion about marriage on the demographics page, but there is nothing about children. I believe that having children keeps people in touch with more modern advances in technology. The latest technological gaffes by the SCOTUS highlight this. Justices Kagan and Sotomayor have never had children, and they are the youngest on the court. The other justices are pretty much grandparents which just serves to emphasize their distance from our fast-paced tech-driven world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CCA4:C6F0:21F5:CAA9:D592:267F (talk) 12:19, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

Edits by User:128.12.253.5

User:128.12.253.5 has sought to edit this page, primarily by changing all instances of "African-American" to "black", stating in his edit summary, "You can't use white and African American. Even ignoring the fact that African American is used improperly on this page, its use, for purposes of consistency, the term European American would be required". Other editors clearly disagree with this proposition. Let's discuss and see if we can reach a consensus. Cheers! bd2412 T 23:54, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

This is a joke, yeah?

This article is weird, SJW type weird. I will just assume it is a joke, and if it isn't then enjoy becoming irrelevant wikipedos since Republicans are on the ascent politically. Fuck liberals, you fucking fucks who sit in your middle class homes in America safe from criticism. I hope you die.96.241.72.141 (talk) 09:22, 9 November 2014 (UTC)