The White House unveiled President Joe Biden’s diverse group of federal court nominees on Tuesday, keeping a promise that Biden made on his presidential campaign to place more Black judges on the courts.
Biden is nominating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to fill Attorney General Merrick Garland’s former seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Jackson, a Black woman, is a former public defender and a member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, according to BuzzFeed News.
If confirmed for that seat, Jackson would be the front runner to fill a seat on the Supreme Court if a seat were to be vacated.
Biden nominated 10 federal court nominees and one nominee for D.C.’s Supreme Court.
Tiffany Cunningham, a patent lawyer in Chicago, was selected for the Federal Circuit, which focuses on intellectual property cases; Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, a lawyer in Washington, was tapped for the 7th Circuit. Like Jackson, Cunningham and Jackson-Akiwumi are Black women.
According to BuzzFeed News, there have only been eight Black women to deserve on the federal appeals court.