The President of the United States of America, His Excellency Joe Biden is set to appoint an African woman to the Supreme Court.
She would replace the liberal justice, Stephen Breyer, who is expected to retire at the end of the current Supreme Court term in June.
His retirement plans are yet to be officially confirmed.
Justice Breyer’s replacement would not shift the court’s current 6-3 conservative majority.
Black women constitute just about 3 percent of the federal judiciary, and none has ever been nominated to the Supreme Court, prompting a growing push from advocacy groups for Biden to fulfill what they see as long overdue.
“Appointing a Black woman to the Supreme Court is the next and necessary step towards a truer form of democracy and ensuring that our unique experiences and perspectives are represented,” Kimberly Tignor, a cohort member of the progressive She Will Rise campaign for a Black woman on the Supreme Court, previously told The 19th.
The president has nominated more Black women — eight — to the U.S. Court of Appeals than any other administration. Five have been confirmed so far.
One of those women is Ketanji Brown Jackson, a judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, who is widely seen as a top prospect for Biden’s first Supreme Court nomination.
Two other Black women appointed to appellate court positions around the same time as Jackson are Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and Judge Tiffany Cunningham on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
