Diversity, Equity, and Injustice: Racial Diversity among Judges and Sentencing Disparities in U.S. State Courts

How does racial diversity impact institutional outcomes and (in)equality? Discussions about diversity usually focus on how individuals’ identities shape their behavior, but diversity is a group-level characteristic. Scholars must therefore consider the relationship between group composition and the individual decisions that shape institutional outcomes. Using a combination of state court data, experimental data, and interviews with current and former trial judges, I explore the relationship between racial diversity among the judges comprising a courthouse and individual judges’ decisions. I find that as the non-White and, especially, Black judges gain representation in a courthouse, racial disparities in White judges’ sentencing decisions decrease. I consider the mechanisms that may be driving this relationship as well as the conditions under which the relationship is most likely to exist.