In light of the recent news that Justice Stevens will be retiring, the New York Times Week in Review notes that he is the sole Protestant on the Supreme Court. The article briefly addresses how religion is no longer considered to be a major factor in the selection of Supreme Court Justices, which may reflect the fact that religious affiliation is no longer a source from which Americans formulate ideas about identity and diversity:
“The practical reality of life in America is that religion plays much less of a role in everyday life than it did 50 or 100 years ago,” said Geoffrey R. Stone, a law professor at the University of Chicago. Adding a Protestant to the court, he said, would not bring an important element to its discussions.“These days,” said Lee Epstein, a law professor at Northwestern and an authority on the court, “we’ve moved to other sources of diversity,” including race, gender and ethnicity.
Read the full article here.
