Number of California Asian American judges are increasing but still a way to go

Some of the members of the California Asian-Pacific American Judges Association.

Since 2006, the number of Asian American judges in California have doubled, making up about 10% of the judges in California.

That shows progress but there is still a way to go to achieve true representation since Asian American make up about 15% of the state, according to new data released by the Judicial Council

Despite having two California Supreme Court justices -- Associate Justice Joyce Kennard, who is Indonesian/ Chinese and Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, who is Filipino American, both of whom are retired, the state has been slow in making its bench more reflective of the state's diverse populations.

 

Efforts by California to increase the number of judges of color into the court system continued. If the bench was truly representative of the state's Asian American population, there would be 15% of the bench would be Asian American.

“People may have certain perceptions of what a judge should look like, and Asian Americans being fairly new to this field are bursting that mold,” said California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu in an interview with the L.A. Times.

For the 18th straight year, California's judicial bench has grown more diverse. Black and Latino judges have also doubled since 2006 and the number of women judges have almost doubled.

As of Dec. 31, 2023, responding female judicial officers constitute 41.2% of judicial officers across all court levels, a 1 percentage point increase over the prior year and an increase of more than 14% points since 2006—the first year that data were collected for this purpose.

The bench also has continued to become more racially and ethnically diverse. The proportion of responding white judicial officers has declined by more than 9 percentage points since 2006. The percentage of responding Asian, Black, and Hispanic judicial officers has doubled over the same time period.

Survey of California Bench

The Judicial Council surveyed California judges and justices in December 2023 to get a snapshot of the demographics of the California bench—including gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Responding to the questionnaire is voluntary for judges, and the data only reflects the responses provided.

A Flourish data visualization

Among the findings:

The data also show changes over the past 18 years in the percentage of responding justices and judges reported in the following race/ethnicity categories:

• American Indian or Alaska Native (0.4% in 2023 compared to 0.1% in 2006);
• Asian (9.8% in 2023 compared to 4.4% in 2006);
• Black or African American (9.0% in 2023 compared to 4.4% in 2006);
• Hispanic or Latino (12.5% in 2023 compared to 6.3% in 2006);
• Pacific Islander (0.3% in 2023 compared to 0.1% in 2006);
• White (60.3% in 2023 compared to 70.1% in 2006);
• Some Other Race (1.3% in 2023 compared to 0.2% in 2006);
• More Than One Race (4.8% in 2023 compared to 4.4% in 2006); and
• Information Not Provided (1.7% in 2023 compared to 9.9% in 2006).

Data show the percentage of female justices and judges has increased to 41.2%, compared to 27.1% in 2006, continuing a steady upward trend.

Federal judges appointed by Biden

California efforts to diversify its bench coincides with the progress at the federal level where President Biden is doing his best to remedy the glaring lack of AAPI judges.

Asian American judicial appointments at the federal level century ago, no AAPI person had ever been selected to serve as a federal judge in the United States.  It was not until 1971 that America broke that shameful barrier, with the confirmation of Herbert Choy for the Ninth Circuit.

Much has changed since 1971. Now, 90 AAPI individuals have served as lifetime federal judges. Remarkably, nearly 40% of them were nominated by President Biden.

President Biden has appointed and the Senate has confirmed 36 Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) lifetime judges, including 24 AANHPI women, who are now serving lifetime appointments on the federal bench.

 In less than four years, Biden has already exceeded the previous record of 22 AAPI judges set by President Barack Obama (and that was over eight years). In percentage terms, 18% of Biden’s confirmed judges have been AAPI, as opposed to 7% for Obama and 6% for Donald Trump.

As Asian American judges climb up the judicial ladder, there is still one barrier still to be accomoplished: the United States Supreme Court. 

“They have a foot in the door in virtually every sector of the legal profession,” Justice Liu told the L.A. Times. “The question now is how wide that door’s going to swing open for them.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: For additional commentary, news and views from an AANHPI perspective, follow me on Threads, on X or at the blog Views From the Edge.