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President Joe Biden has selected more minority and women judges than former President Donald Trump did in four years.
Fifteen of his nineteen nominees are women, and eleven of the women are from diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds.
“This trailblazing slate of nominees draws from the very best and brightest minds of the American legal profession,” the President said. “Each is deeply qualified and prepared to deliver justice faithfully under our Constitution and impartially to the American people — and together they can represent the broad diversity of background, experience, and perspective that makes our nation strong.”
A Washington Post analysis of Federal Judicial Center data shows that women are underrepresented in the judiciary. President Biden plans to nominate the first black woman to the Supreme Court given a chance.
According to The Washington Post, women from diverse racial or ethnic backgrounds account for 10.9 percent of judges in the district courts and 6.4 percent in the appellate courts.
Cheri Beasley, the first Black woman to serve as chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, believes that a diverse court will lead to more trust in the law institution.
“It really does import a sense of trust and confidence when the judiciary makeup is reflective of the demographics of the state,” she said.
Beasley, a U.S. Senate candidate, is one of Biden’s potential nominees for the Supreme Court.
Data collected by the Brennan Center for Justice shows that women account for only 39 percent of state Supreme Court justices.
“State judiciaries are one of the pipelines to the federal bench,” Alicia Bannon, managing director of Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, said. “And the fact that there is not a tremendous amount of diversity on the state benches can also be one challenge in bringing greater diversity to the federal bench.”
According to The Washington Post, Alaska, Kansas, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, and Wyoming have not had any women of color as a judge since 1960.
“Women of color are more severely impacted because they sit at the intersection of racism and sexism,” Stacy Hawkins, professor of law at Rutgers Law School, said.
