http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/30/washington/30scotus.html?ei=5094&en=f7897a410e22d170&hp=&ex=1156996800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=printAugust 30, 2006
Supreme Court Memo
By LINDA GREENHOUSE
WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — Everyone knows that with the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the number of female Supreme Court justices fell by half. The talk of the court this summer, with the arrival of the new crop of law clerks, is that the number of female clerks has fallen even more sharply.
Just under 50 percent of new law school graduates in 2005 were women. Yet women account for only 7 of the 37 law clerkships for the new term, the first time the number has been in the single digits since 1994, when there were 4,000 fewer women among the country’s new law school graduates than there are today.
Last year at this time, there were 14 female clerks, including one, Ann E. O’Connell, who was hired by William H. Rehnquist, the chief justice who died before the term began. His successor, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., then hired Ms. O’Connell.
After years in which more than a third of the clerks were women, the sudden drop was a hot topic this summer on various law-related blogs. Word of the justices’ individual hiring decisions spread quickly among those for whom the comings and goings of law clerks are more riveting than any offering on reality television.
I'M SHOCKED--SHOCKED, I TELL YOU!!!