How Biden, Obama and Trump Compare on Diversity of Court  Picks

President Joe Biden’s selection of a Black, female U.S. Supreme Court justice would make history, and the nominee would join the ranks of one of the most diverse groups of federal judges ever to make their way to the bench.

Among those who could fill the vacancy are Ketanji Brown Jackson, a former clerk of retiring Justice Stephen Breyer; Leondra Kruger, a California Supreme Court justice; and Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Should one of them be nominated, it would be a first for the court, which didn’t get its first Black justice until Thurgood Marshall in 1967 or its first female justice until Sandra Day O’Connor in 1981.

Biden said Thursday he would fulfill his promise to nominate the first Black woman to the high court. He said he would announce his choice by the end of February after reviewing candidates and their records.

During his presidency, Biden has picked a number of judges who were eventually confirmed as “firsts” at their level — part of a campaign promise to diversify the courts. These include Zahid Quraishi, the first Muslim-American federal judge in the U.S., and Beth Robinson, the first out LGBTQ woman to sit on a federal circuit court.