Boom! Biden Just Made a Huge Number of Black Women Judges During Final Days As President

Biden has fulfilled his promise to diversify the federal judiciary.

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In the last weeks of his presidency, President Joe Biden has fulfilled his campaign promise to make the federal judiciary more diverse. The president has made history by appointing 40 Black women judges, according to data courtesy of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Many believed Biden’s nomination of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court also reflected his determination to keep his word regarding diversity. In 2022, Jackson became the first Black woman to serve on the country’s highest court.

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President-elect Donald Trump appointed two Black women as judges while former President Barack Obama appointed 26. Altogether, Biden has appointed a total of 62 Black judges.

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This is vital as Trump gets ready to start his second presidential term. Biden’s Black judicial picks could play an important role in checking Trump, as he has vowed to dismantle government agencies like the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

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According to The Washington Informer, Congress is still divided over the increasing the number of federal judgeships. Though legislation to add 66 new judgeships was approved unanimously by the Senate earlier this year, it stalled in the GOP-controlled House until after the election.

House Republicans insisted distributing the new judgeships over the next 10 years, giving three administrations a say in appointments. However, Biden implied that he would veto the bill if it reached his desk.

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Prior to Biden’s appointments, only eight Black women had ever served at the appellate court level of the federal judiciary. The only other president who is comparable to Biden’s achievement of Black judges was President Jimmy Carter who appointed 37 Black lifetime judges.

Biden’s appointments include: Tiffany Cunningham, the first Black judge to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit; Jerry Edwards, Jr., the first Black judge to serve on U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana; and Dana Douglas, the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.