IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v119y2025i1p492-499_32.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Gender, Race, and Interruptions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings

Author

Listed:
  • BOYD, CHRISTINA L.
  • COLLINS, PAUL M.
  • RINGHAND, LORI A.

Abstract

In this research letter, we examine whether gender and racial bias affect interruption rates at one of the most visible events in American politics: US Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Using original data from 1939 to 2022, we find that male and white participants are more likely to interrupt women and person of color speakers, respectively, relative to male and white speakers. This finding holds for both senators and nominees as interrupters. Our results provide evidence that biased interruptive behavior occurs in even the most public and salient of political settings and that it can be mitigated (or intensified) by shared (or opposite) partisanship among speaking pairs. We also find interruption inequalities are not isolated to women as the interrupted, revealing that people of color in political and legal settings are subject to heightened rates of interruptions as well.

Suggested Citation

  • Boyd, Christina L. & Collins, Paul M. & Ringhand, Lori A., 2025. "Gender, Race, and Interruptions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 119(1), pages 492-499, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:119:y:2025:i:1:p:492-499_32
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055424000145/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:119:y:2025:i:1:p:492-499_32. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.