Reply #36: I agree--as I stated, there is no question that both groups

[spooky3]

are underrepresented as are other demographic groups (Latinos, Asian-Americans, etc.) and I don't think many people would agree that Clarence Thomas' judicial actions are very representative of anything other than someone that conservative white men feel comfortable having on the court. My concern is just that comparing degrees of being underrepresented is tricky. When some people (not you) see one woman on a court and say "look at the progress!", they are forgetting that there should be at least three more for them to be proportionate to the population; likewise to be proportionate, there should be more than 200 female members of Congress, etc. I think there is also a tendency on the part of some people to mentally overstate the numbers, maybe to reinforce their sense of progress or equity. I work in a male-dominated occupation and in a prior job, out of a department of nearly 30 people the highest proportion of women over 15 years was about 15% at any one time, and it was usually less than 10%. Yet one of my white male friends who considered himself very liberal (from NYC) asserted to another man that our department was "about half" female.

And I am not arguing that #s should be exactly proportionate, particularly not if a completely merit based selection system is used (e.g., theoretically a court could be all female or all minority under this system and be fair). However, I have yet to see a completely merit based system - particularly, none involving voting or political appointments, for the reasons you pointed out in your OP and in replies here.