Judicial rulings on expert evidence determine which specialized knowledge enters the courtroom and, in doing so, shape the credibility of litigants and the legitimacy of their claims. This article examines how disparities in litigant status shape the judicial gatekeeping of expert evidence and how this process relates to the ideological context of the legal forum. Using data from a probability sample of 811 Daubert rulings from United States District Courts, our multinomial logistic regression models show that, overall, higher status litigants are more successful in excluding opposing evidence and in overcoming exclusionary motions. However, this aggregate relationship masks a pronounced ideological divide. Specifically, higher status litigants tend to be more successful in cases assigned to conservative judges while lower status litigants tend to be more successful in cases assigned to liberal judges. These findings illustrate how trial court decisions reflect broader institutional and ideological forces and suggest that ideological contexts can either amplify or temper structural inequalities in the courtroom.
