HERE'S ANOTHER TAKE ON THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY: DOES THE SUPREME COURT NEED A MILITARY VETERAN?

Until Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1981,no woman had served on the Supreme Court. Today, there are three women -- Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Justice Sonia Sotomayor (who is also the Court's first Latino justice) and Justice Elena Kagan. The first Jewish Justice was Louis Brandeis, nominated by President Woodrow Wilson in 1918, and today the Court has three Jewish justices -- Kagan, Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer -- as well as six Catholics (Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Samuel Alito, Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia, Justice Anthony Kennedy, and Sotomayor). Of course, Justice Thurgood Marshall became the first African-American on the Court, nominated by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967 and there has been one other African-American, Justice Thomas. But when Justice John Paul Stevens retired last year, the Court lost its only Protestant (in a majority Protestant nation) and its only military veteran.

"We are presented here with the question of what happens when the political branches fail to act in a manner that is consistent with the Constitution. The Constitution affirms that the People have rights that are enforceable against the government. One such right is to be free from unjustified governmental deprivation of property "including the health care and benefits that our laws guarantee veterans upon completion of their service. Absent constitutionally sufficient procedural protections, the promise we make to veterans becomes worthless. When the government harms its veterans by the deprivations at issue here, they are entitled to turn to the courts for relief. Indeed, our Constitution established an independent Judiciary precisely for situations like this, in which a vulnerable group, that is being denied its rights by an unresponsive government, has nowhere else to turn. No more critical example exists than when the government fails to afford its injured or wounded veterans their constitutional rights. Wars, including wars of choice, have many costs. Affording our veterans their constitutional rights is a primary one.”

Judge Stephen Reinhardt, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, writing the majority opinion in Veterans for Common Sense v Shinseki, a case brought to challenge the quality of care being afforded veterans, specifically in the area of mental health. The opinion cited grim statistics showing that eighteen veterans commit suicide each day and one thousand attempt suicide each month due largely to untreated or undertreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.