Gender and Supreme Court Legitimacy in Light of the Kavanaugh Appointment

• In Event: Causes and Consequences of Public Support for the Supreme Court

Abstract

President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court triggered widespread protests and controversy, even prior to Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual assault allegations. By the end of day one of Kavanaugh’s hearing, September 4, 2018, seventy protesters, largely women, had been arrested. Most of those arrested claimed to be acting on behalf of women, including the first woman arrested who described Kavanaugh’s nomination as “a direct assault on women” (Stolberg et. al., 2018; Tully-McManus, 2018). The intensity of opposition and level of protests had increased dramatically by September 29 when the Senate narrowly voted (50-48) to confirm Justice Kavanaugh. Thousands of protesters had taken to the streets in different parts of the country and hundreds of protesters, again largely women, had been arrested in the Capitol.

While the nation’s deep political and partisan cleavages were prominently displayed during the confirmation, there are a number of important questions that warrant deeper consideration. Among the most significant is whether the large numbers of women, who engaged in the protests, are an accurate reflection of the general views of women in the country. Another important question is whether the contentious nature of the nomination process has affected the public perceptions of the Supreme Court. The Court, like other government entities depends upon legitimacy---“the belief that authorities, institutions, and social arrangements are appropriate, proper, and just” which encourage people to voluntarily defer to those entities even when they might not agree with a particular action (Tyler, 2006: 376).

In this research we examine the impact of the Kavanaugh confirmation on public perceptions of Court legitimacy. Although other researchers (Gibson and Caldeira, 2009) have examined the impact of contentious Court appointments in the past, this project breaks new ground in that we explicitly focus on the role of gender. We consider whether the intensity of opposition among female protesters that was so visible during the Senate hearings has translated into greater distrust of the Court among women, or whether that is largely mitigated by other partisan and demographic factors. As such, the framing of this research brings together both the general scholarship on Court legitimacy and gender-based public opinion and voting literature.

Authors

• Jean Reith Schroedel, Claremont Graduate University

• Christopher Krewson, Claremont Graduate University