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.
Repository Citation
Lori A. Ringhand; Christina L. Boyd; and Paul M. Collins, Jr.,
Gender, Race, and Interruptions at Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings
, 119 Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 492
(2025),
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.uga.edu/fac_artchop/1771
Included in
Law and Gender Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Law and Race Commons, Supreme Court of the United States Commons
Previously posted to Cambridge University Press.