Popular Press
The Myth of the Apolitical Judge: How Language Ideologies Underlie the Judicial Confirmation Process
Anthropology News
(2017)
Abstract
One thing Neil Gorsuch has in common with many previous Supreme Court nominees is his insistence that he is an apolitical judge. Judges like to think they are apolitical and merely, as Gorsuch emphasized, “follow the words that are in the law.” John Roberts likened a judge to a baseball umpire who simply calls balls and strikes during his nomination hearings in 2005. Both the umpire metaphor and the insistence that judges simply follow “the words that are in the law” presume words to be transparent conveyors of meaning and present the process of judging as mechanical. But legal interpretation is an act of linguistic interpretation carried out by social actors positioned within a particular social, political, and historical context. The problem with the myth of the apolitical judge is that it is part of a discourse that relies on an incomplete set of language ideologies—that is, ideas and beliefs about language that typically operate as unrecognized assumptions—to legitimize conservative judicial philosophies.
Keywords
- legal discourse,
- language ideologies,
- apolitical judge,
- judicial confirmation process,
- judicial philosophies
Disciplines
Publication Date
May 1, 2017
DOI
10.1111/AN.419
Publisher Statement
Copyright 2017 American Anthropological Association
Citation Information
Adam Hodges. "The Myth of the Apolitical Judge: How Language Ideologies Underlie the Judicial Confirmation Process" Anthropology News Vol. 58 Iss. 3 (2017) p. e294 - e298 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/adamhodges/71/