Biden owes his presidency to Black women. Appointing one to the Supreme Court is only right. | Jenice Armstrong
There has never been an African American woman on the nation’s highest court. We are way overdue.
I grew up in Washington, D.C., and spent several summers during college working as a tour guide on the National Mall for the now-defunct Tourmobile Sightseeing Co. When our bus would pass outside the Supreme Court building, I would dutifully point out the words emblazoned above the columns that read “Equal Justice Under Law.”
The irony was never lost on me that those words sit atop a court that sanctioned racist laws such as the Dred Scott case that ruled in 1857 that even if enslaved Africans lived in a free state, they were still considered property. And the Plessy v. Ferguson case of 1896 that made separate but equal the law of the land.
The legendary Justice Thurgood Marshall was still on the bench at the time, championing the cause of civil rights, but to me, he was more like a superhero than a real person. The idea that someone who actually looked like me might one day be seated on the Supreme Court was foreign to me during those hot, humid summers.
I thought about those days on the tour bus on Wednesday when news broke that Justice Stephen Breyer will retire after nearly three decades on the bench. By stepping down, Breyer, one of the court’s three liberal judges, has created an opportunity for President Joe Biden to appoint a new justice.
On Thursday morning, Biden announced that he plans to appoint a Black woman.
It’s about time! Every single person appointed to the court was a white non-Hispanic male before Marshall broke the color line with his historic appointment in 1967. But there has never been an African American woman on the nation’s highest court. We are way overdue.
Black women played pivotal roles during the last presidential election in terms of voter mobilization and turning out. Roughly 90% of us voted for Biden over Donald Trump. We are the backbone of the Democratic Party and one of its most reliable voting blocs. Biden owes this to us. We helped get him in the White House.
Biden has some stellar candidates from which to choose.
This could be an opportunity for the president to rethink who’s in the pipeline for such a prestigious appointment, and also about the credentials and backgrounds of those who get considered. After all, Black jurists aren’t interchangeable. Just look at the vast difference between Justices Thurgood “Mr. Civil Rights” Marshall and Clarence Thomas, who helped gut the Voting Rights Act.
Biden needs to consider nominating someone with a firsthand perspective on grappling with the reality of systemic racism in America, the way that Sherrilyn Ifill has as the head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Whomever he selects needs to bring a unique experience that will enlighten the court in some way, which will lead to more nuanced rulings.
When looking for the right person, Biden should consider graduates from one of the six historically Black college law schools. Our first Black woman on the Supreme Court doesn’t need to have attended Harvard or Yale Universities like all of the justices except Amy Coney Barrett, who got her law degree from the University of Notre Dame.
But if he insists on nominating yet another Harvard Law graduate to the bench, Biden could at least consider one with public defender experience, such as Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Another plus is that she’s related by marriage to former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, which could win her points during what’s sure to be a contentious Senate confirmation hearing. During her April confirmation hearing for her current position, she pointed out, “I’ve experienced life in perhaps a different way than some of my colleagues because of who I am.” Three Republican senators voted along with Democrats to confirm her.
On Wednesday, as I watched the nightly news and saw the faces of the top contenders for the nomination flash up on the screen, I got misty-eyed at the possibility. Representation matters. And it’s needed. As the court’s first Latina, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, once pointed out, “A different perspective can permit you to more fully understand the arguments that are before you and help you articulate your position in a way that everyone will understand.”
We need that in our next Supreme Court justice.