I agree with this. A white male judge who makes an active attempt to hire other white males could not possibly have a benevolent and justifiable reason for doing so. Whereas a black judge could possibly be trying to provide opportunity to people in certain disadvantaged communities (often black) who may not have otherwise had access to such opportunities. Or perhaps the judge is worried that the black applicant, by virtue of his race, is more likely to "fall through the cracks" at future hiring stages, so he lends him a bit of a preference now to give him the boost.ndirish2010 wrote:For what it's worth, white male judges almost universally do not hire people based on race, because we are already quite well represented. If someone explicitly did that, I would certainly thing it was more weird than if a black judge did it. Black judges have every reason to want to promote the success of bright black law students by hiring them as clerks, and I see nothing wrong with that.
Of course, that isn't to say that a black judge couldn't perhaps be of the mindset of "I just per se like to hire those of my own kind". But there are a multitude of justifications a black judge could have for making an attempt to hire some black clerks if possible.
