Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks during a conversation with professor Melissa Murray of UC Berkeley School of Law at the American Constitution Society’s National Convention. Credit: Diego M. Radzinschi/National Law Journal.
In the U.S. Supreme Court term that just ended, male justices interrupting female justices during oral arguments was at its second highest rate in 20 years, with Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan the most regularly cut off, according to an updated study.
The study, conducted by Tonja Jacobi of Northwestern University School of Law and Matthew Sag of Loyola University Chicago School of Law, covered the 2016 and 2017 terms and extended previous data to 20 years. Their earlier study showed that female Supreme Court justices are interrupted three times as often as the male justices, by both male justices and male advocates at oral argument.
