Book review: “Shortlisted: Women in the Shadows of the Supreme Court” by Renee Knake Jefferson and Hannah Brenner Johnson, New York University Press, 304 pages, $30
Two perverse strategies, “shortlisting” and “tokenism,” have impeded the progress of women in the legal profession. In a new book by professors Renee Knake Jefferson and Hannah Brenner Johnson, the co-authors analyze how shortlisting and tokenism affected the lives and careers of nine women who were “considered” but not appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Through the “collective narrative” of these women, the book strives to “better understand and ultimately ameliorate the dynamics that perpetually keep women on the shortlist.” As such, it is a useful book that not only exposes these strategies for what they are—instruments to preserve the status quo—but it also suggests meaningful ways in which to “surmount the shortlist.”
