This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2016, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Just as a new report warned that Utah's judiciary is not reflective of the state's ethnic and gender makeup, the most important court in the land ruled — again — that creating an ethnically diverse upper class is a worthy effort because it benefits all Americans, not just members of a group who previously have been left behind.

Too often, affirmative action policies in universities and workplaces are derided as an unfair, even condescending, attempt to be kind to blacks, Hispanics, women or other groups of people who have not always had the same opportunities as white males to reach the upper echelons of society.

But the point of those efforts is not to do a favor for an individual person. It is to build a culture that, even in its lofty positions of power, reflects the composition of the whole society. Such efforts give the ruling class and its institutions — legislative, executive, judicial and academic — the legitimacy they need to carry out their duties.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last Thursday that the ongoing efforts of the University of Texas to admit a mix of students that reflects the state as a whole have a legitimate academic purpose. That the school's affirmative action program benefits all students, not just those who had the personal benefit of being brought into a system they otherwise might have be left out of, by educating them in the same kind of ethnically diverse atmosphere that they will soon be living in, working in and, in many cases, called to lead.

That is why the state of Utah should be concerned that, according to a recent analysis by the American Constitutional Society for Law and Policy, our state comes in last among the states in having a judiciary that matches its population.

While white men make up 38 percent of Utah's population, they hold 79 percent of the judgeships. White women are 40 percent of the population, yet sit in only 13 percent of the seats on the state bench.

The status quo has been defended with the idea that Utah deserves the best judges, selected without concern for their race or gender. But the judiciary as a whole will not be as qualified, as just and as respected — will not be the best — as long as it is so far out of kilter with the state as a whole.

A judiciary that looks like Utah — a state where one in seven of us are Hispanic — would serve a purpose that has nothing to do with tokenism and everything to do with dispensing justice that will be widely recognized as such.

The rulings of white male judges are much more likely to be — and be accepted as — truly just if those jurists go to college, graduate law school and attend judicial conferences with peers of all colors and shapes.

Those human interactions inform every field of study, especially the law and public service, more than any textbook or case study. That is why efforts to diversify benefit everyone, and must be continued.