When Justice Souter's resignation was announced, it seemed clear to me that a minority female needed to be nominated and I hoped it would be as clear to the President.   Sure, there would be the inevitable "reverse racism" and "oppressed white man" outrage, but as Justice Kennedy himself points out, even while ruling against the school diversity plans in Parents vs. Seattle Schools,  "A compelling interest exists in avoiding racial isolation."

Certainly we do not need to slice up the Supreme Court along pure demographic lines, but we cannot pretend that a body that is 88% white male is an example of the equal opportunity this country claims it is built on.  In fact, this would seem to be more of an example of that "racial isolation" that Justice Kennedy believes should be avoided, and that only exists in one other place that I can think of, the U.S. Senate, which has generally proven useless at addressing disparities in the treatment of its citizens.   Let's not forget that we just this year, finally, got equal pay protections.

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