Women for Roberts: It's the Constitution, Not the Chromosomes

At 10:00, I’ll be attending a “Women for Roberts” press conference at the National Press Club. Check back for pictures — I’ll do my best to get our MC, the elusive (and so reasoned and audacious!) Kathryn Lopez of NRO on film. . .

Here’s my statement:

WASHINGTON, D.C., Aug. 24 – President Bush has been criticized for nominating a man to fill retiring Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s seat on the Supreme Court. The National Organization for Women argues that appointing a woman committed to “upholding equality for all” would have been the better choice. Even Justice O’Connor herself remarked that Roberts was “good in every way, except he’s not a woman.”

But there should not be a “women’s seat” on the Supreme Court. The best guarantor of women’s rights is the Constitution, not the double X chromosome.

Senator Ken Salazar (D, CO) wrote to the President expressing “disappointment” that the nominee was not a woman. Invoking his own two daughters, Salazar said we should be sending young women the message that “their gender creates no limitations for them.” And that the Roberts nomination sends “the opposite message.”

Senator Salazar is wrong. I have three daughters. I would prefer they get the message that their achievements are based on accomplishment, not tokenism and quotas. . . We will know women have gained true equality only when lists of potential Supreme Court nominees include men . . . and women. . . for every seat on the Court, not just some arbitrarily designated “women’s seats.”