President Joe Biden has pledged to nominate the nation’s first Black female Supreme Court Justice.
“The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience and integrity. And that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court,” Biden said while honoring retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer at the White House on Thursday. “It’s long overdue in my view. I made that commitment during the campaign for president, and I will keep that commitment.”
Black women make up only 3% of the federal judiciary, according to data from the Federal Judicial Center.
Biden says he will announce his pick by the end of February.
The frontrunners are:
Ketanji Brown Jackson
Jackson, a Harvard graduate, currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Washington circuit. During her time at Harvard, she led protests against a student who draped a Confederate flag from his dorm window and once served as the Harvard Law Review editor. She has clerked for three federal judges in the past, including Justice Breyer from 1999-2000.
If nominated, Jackson would be coming directly from the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, the second-most-important court in the country after the Supreme Court.
Leondra Kruger
Leondra Kruger has served on the California Supreme Court for eight years. Born in California, Kruger is the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant mother and a Jewish father.
If appointed as Breyer’s successor, Kruger will become the fifth justice of Jewish heritage over the last 100 years to hold the seat.
Kruger is a graduate of Harvard University, though her law degree was earned at Yale Law School, where she made history as the first Black woman to serve as editor of the Yale Law Journal. Kruger previously worked at the Obama Department of Justice from 2007-13. She twice turned down offers to serve as the Solicitor General.
J Michelle Childs
Julianna Michelle Childs graduated from the University of South Carolina Law School and has served on the federal bench in South Carolina since 2010. Prior to her tenure on the federal bench, she became the first Black female partner at a major law firm in the state.
“Judge Childs is among multiple individuals under consideration for the Supreme Court, and we are not going to move her nomination on the Court of Appeals while the President is considering her for this vacancy,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.
While Jackson, Kruger and Childs are the most likely picks, the White House has made it clear that several other potential nominees are also being “seriously considered.”
