President Biden is doing the right thing by replacing the retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer with a black female nominee. Too bad Barack Obama couldn’t replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, but she decided to stay too long and Mitch McConnell decided the next nomination wasn’t part of a lame duck’s purview.
The only problem with Biden keeping his primary campaign promise is that it can seem a token gesture—or one that ignores the qualified across other races and ethnicities. This isn’t affirmative action. This is overdue action that will make history and help SCOTUS look more like America.
The process formally started with the nomination and appointment of Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Justice in 1916. Thurgood Marshall became the first black Justice in 1967, and Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman in 1981. Then Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic jurist, in 2009.
No less important, a black female SCOTUS Justice will also be a role model and maybe a catalyst for young black women looking at the law as a career. Right now roughly 2 percent of the nation’s 1.3 million lawyers are women of color. That has to change, and a historic selection can be a societal game changer.