Monica Teixeira de Sousa (’02), Professor of Law at New England Law | Boston, contributed an opinion to The Hill discussing the importance of considering SCOTUS nominees’ socioeconomic backgrounds towards creating a more inclusive Supreme Court (“The Ruling Class and the Supreme Court,” Feb. 5). “Those selected to serve as final arbiters on questions of fundamental import should not be so visibly at odds with the racial and gender demographic makeup of our society - and their lives should not have been so thoroughly shielded from the financial hardships that afflict the 37.2 million Americans living in poverty. . . . The appointment of a Black woman to the Supreme Court, the very first in our Nation's long history, will help provide some much-needed legitimacy to a court largely protected from the day-to-day hardships experienced by most Americans. As pleased as I am with President Biden's important step to create a more inclusive court, I do hope the long journey to diversify the court will next focus on the justices’ socioeconomic backgrounds - an invisible factor more challenging to track, but which contains the potential to transform not only the court's jurisprudence but the general public’s faith in the institution.”
