“There may be no sitting justice who better exemplified the difference
between diversity and empathy than Justice Stevens. He grew up white,
male, heterosexual, Protestant, and wealthy. At no point in time was he
a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay or a frightened teenage girl. And yet,
over the decades, his rulings and written opinions repeatedly showed us
that he could see the world through the eyes of those with very
different life experiences from his own. In other words, he tapped his
inner “wise Latina woman” when the case called for it, and we are all
better for it. Stevens used empathy not to skew or manipulate his
jurisprudence, but to consider the effects of his decisions on real
people and to accept that the law can look quite different depending on
where you’re standing. That’s part of what made him such a great
justice, and it’s a quality the president should bear in mind in
selecting his replacement.” — Dahlia Lithwick and Sonja West
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