Increased diversity enhances public confidence
in the work of the federal Judiciary. So many people view diversity through a very very
specific lens usually racial diversity and gender diversity but if you uh view it as I do
as a much broader enterprise then uh the value of it I think becomes very apparent. I really do
think first obviously foremost of my own Court as a family that includes everyone not just judges
but also staff judicial assistants, law clerks, everyone is a part of the family and I feel very
strongly about that. The one thing about families is you always learn from each other you need to
rely on other family members to get the job done. My mother is from the northern part of Haiti and
that part of my family stretches way back to well before the Haitian revolution. My father's
family comes from the south part of Haiti, part of it is actually from French derivation. My
father is actually an exile so during the period of time when Papa Doc Duvalier was in power
that was I think as many people know a very difficult autocratic regime and my father was a
young medical student he may have just graduated from medical school. He found himself on the wrong
side of the regime and so he left immediately for Montreal. Meanwhile my mother went to Canada to
train as a nurse so there was a whole diaspora of Haitians who went from Haiti to either Canada,
particularly the French speaking part of Canada and Quebec or to the to the United States for
different professional reasons. Some Haitians also went to West Africa but in any event my
parents actually met in Montreal and ergo me. That's where I was born and I lived there and my
first language was French, Francais and I we lived there until I was six and then for a number of
different professional reasons having to do with my father we moved to the United States at that
point. So I grew up in Philadelphia and went to a Quaker School. The importance of education was
instilled in me at a very early age and I've taken that very seriously. I was a philosophy major
and learned so much from my professors. Today even as a judge they say call me whatever call
me by my first name and I'm unable to do that, I call them Professor because I view that as the
highest calling. I was with a very diverse group of college roommates actually interestingly one of
my college roommates is a federal district court judge and is actually the Chief Judge of Hawaii,
Derek Watson Chief Judge Watson and a wonderful friend. At every point in my life I benefited
from and I hope that others have benefited from a diverse group of people who bring to whatever
the project is their diversity but also different views that strengthen the project, that strengthen
the ability collectively to arrive at some form of success. The one form of diversity that's very
meaningful to me is the diversity of the country from which we come as Americans. It's been a
meaningful component of my life that I'm an immigrant, that I immigrated and that so many
people that I know immigrated particularly as young people. So I've lost my French accent as so
many people do who immigrate when they're five or six or seven but I've never really lost the the
memories and of course it's important to me that my parents are of not just Haitian descent but
descended from the Caribbean. I happen to be on a court right now in the second Circuit Court of
Appeals that for the first time in its history has more women active judges than than men. And
it's you know a wonderful development in my view and but nothing is given so Frederick Douglas
who is a hero of mine has a wonderful line that you know power is never seized without a struggle
never has it and never will. And gender diversity, different types of diversity don't come about
just willy-nilly. They come about because people want it and people struggle for it and push
for it I think it's important for the Federal Judiciary. It's important because it enhances
public confidence in our work and what we do.
