Get Off Her Back, Man

I’ve been avoiding news and politics lately, but every now and then something sneaks by. One thing I saw recently was an effort to get Sonia Sotomayor to step down before the next administration. The commenter compared her to RBG and implied that mere hubris could be the only reason a 70-year-old diabetic wouldn’t step down. I’ve heard this call countless times during the Biden admin, always invoking RBG, always with the same scolding, moralizing tone. And I gotta say: dude, slow your roll. 

At 70, Sotomayor is FIVE presidential elections younger than Ginsberg was at her death at 87. Moreover, of the justices appointed over the past 50-odd years (I went back to 1970), only one Supreme Court justice has ever stepped down as early as 70 years old:

    • Breyer, resigned at 84

    • Kennedy (82)

    • Souter (69) 

    • Stevens (90)

    • O’Connor (76)

    • Powell (80)

    • Blackmun (86)

That’s an average retirement age of 81. It’s mostly men, who live shorter lives than women, and over an era when healthcare outcomes were far worse. (Life expectancy for men was 72 in 1990–but 79 for women.) Women have a life expectancy of 80 years today, which is three presidential elections longer than Sotomayor is—as well as the average of the justices listed above. And that RBG example is especially galling because Ginsberg, at 84, had had four bouts of cancer as well as cancer surgeries, but still decided she needed to roll the dice. 

Sonia Sotomayor may die in the next four years. Anyone may die in the next four years. It is hardly unreasonable for her to make the same decision nearly every Supreme Court justice in the past half century has made and stay on the court. 

Like, get off her back, man.