Diversity should be a top priority for Iowa’s next Supreme Court justice

Jerry L. Anderson, Roxanne Conlin and Odell McGhee
Iowa View contributors
The Iowa Judicial Branch Building, which houses the Iowa Supreme Court.

Justice Bruce Zager’s retirement opens up a slot on the Iowa Supreme Court.  The state judicial nominating commission will interview candidates in early July and then will send three names to Gov. Kim Reynolds for her final selection.

While there are many qualities that make up an excellent jurist, we — along with many others — hope that the commission and the governor make gender and racial diversity top priorities for this selection. The lack of diversity in our courts in general, and the Supreme Court in particular, is a serious detriment to both the perception and reality of equality in Iowa’s judicial system.

Iowa is an unfortunate outlier in the nation’s progress on this issue.  A recent study by the American Constitution Society compared the population of women and minorities in each state with their representation on the state’s courts.  Iowa received a grade of “F” in this analysis, based on the relative dearth of women and minority judges in our system.

Blacks in Iowa are incarcerated at more than 10 times the rate of whites, one of only five states with that level of disparate incarceration. Yet we never have had a justice of color on the Iowa Supreme Court, in the history of the state. We are rapidly becoming one of the few states left that has never had a person of color on the highest court.

Attorney Douglas Fulton speaks to the Iowa Supreme Court on April 10, 2018.

Our record regarding gender diversity is also appalling.  According to our research, Iowa is now the only state in the country that does not have a woman on its highest court.  In fact, in 11 states women now hold the majority of positions on the highest state court.  

Iowa is justifiably proud of our Supreme Court’s record in the area of civil rights.  The first reported decision of the Iowa Supreme Court held that a slave would not be returned to his Missouri owner while he was on Iowa soil. In 1868, the Iowa Supreme Court desegregated Iowa schools, some 86 years before the federal decision in Brown v. Board of Education. In 1869, the court admitted Arabella Mansfield to the bar, becoming the first state to admit a woman to the practice of law.

This long tradition of equality and justice would be tarnished by continuing to seat an all-white, all-male state Supreme Court.  

We believe Iowa is extraordinarily blessed by the excellent quality of our judiciary, from our magistrate judges to our Supreme Court justices.  Nevertheless, more gender and racial diversity on our highest court will bring a greater variety of perspectives to bear in its decision making and bolster the legitimacy of its judgments.  The vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Zager presents an opportunity for expanding the perspective of our highest court.  We urge the nominating commission and the governor to give strong weight to those considerations in choosing the next justice. 

Jerry L. Anderson is the dean and Richard M. and Anita Calkins Distinguished Professor of Law at Drake Law School.

Roxanne Conlin is a Des Moines trial lawyer who was one of the first two women ever selected to be a U.S. Attorney and was the first woman president of the Association of Trial Lawyers of America.

Odell McGhee, II, is an associate district court judge in District 5C and former president of the Iowa Judges Association.