How US judges manage a dilemma narrating their careers

Abstract

In the United States the law espouses contrary principles about the relationship between identity categories, such as race and gender, and justice. On the one hand, a more representative judiciary is seen to be a way to ensure greater justice. On the other, the law is assumed to be “blind” to parties’ identities; race and gender of judges and litigants doesn’t matter. These contrary principles create a dilemma when judges narrate their career. This study examines interviews with 20 retired and senior judges, five judges of each of four racial-gender categories: Black and white men and women, culled from the city of Philadelphia’s Senior Judge Oral History Program. After providing specifics about the Senior Judge interviews, past research on gender and race influences on professional talk, and describing issues to consider in interviews, I analyze the interviews and show that judges deal with the dilemma of identities mattering AND identities not mattering by distinguishing two phases of life: how a person came to be a judge and what a person did as a judge. In explaining how one came to be a judge, the person’s race and gender were clear influences. In contrast, when judges narrated their work activities, what they did as a judge, there were few discursive tells revealing a judge’s race or gender. In concluding I consider the problems and advantages of managing this justice-identities dilemma in the fashion that these judges did and suggest a direction for future research.