Biden has pledged to nominate a Black female SCOTUS justice—who are the possibilities?
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President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to nominate the first Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court if he gets a chance to make a nomination.
Several publications are listing possibilities, including Law360, Axios, CNN, NBC and Newsweek.
Two women considered leading contenders are:
• U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of Washington, D.C., a nominee of President Barack Obama. Jackson, 50, is a graduate of Harvard Law School who formerly clerked for Justice Stephen G. Breyer. She has worked as an assistant public defender and as of counsel at Morrison & Foerster.
• California Supreme Court Justice Leondra Kruger. Kruger, 44, is a graduate of Yale Law School and a former clerk for Justice John Paul Stevens. She is a former assistant U.S. solicitor general who argued 12 cases before the Supreme Court. She also served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel.
Two others getting frequent mentions are:
• Sherrilyn Ifill, the president of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Ifill is a graduate of the New York University School of Law and a former law professor at the University of Maryland.
• New York University law professor Melissa Murray, a Yale law graduate who clerked for Justice Sonia Sotomayor when Sotomayor was a federal appeals judge.
Other possibilities mentioned by some publications:
• U.S. District Judge Leslie Abrams Gardner of the Middle District of Georgia, a Yale law grad, a former prosecutor and a former lawyer with Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom. Gardner is the sister of Stacey Abrams, who ran unsuccessfully to be the governor of Georgia.
• Stacey Abrams, a Yale law grad who ran unsuccessfully to be the Georgia governor and the founder of the New Georgia Project and Fair Fight, two groups that sought to register voters and secure election rights.
• New York Attorney General Letitia James, a graduate of the Howard University School of Law.
• Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a law graduate of Georgia State University.
