Among them are Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson for an appeals court, positioning her to potentially become the first Black female Supreme Court justice.
President Biden announced his first slate of judicial nominees Tuesday, moving quickly to put a diverse cast on the federal judiciary and placing a 50-year-old federal judge in position to potentially become the first Black woman nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The 11 nominees contrasted sharply with the people appointed to the bench by former President Trump, who were overwhelmingly white and male.
All three of Biden's initial nominees to the federal appeals courts, the second-highest tier in the judicial system, are Black women. The nominees for federal district court posts include people who, if confirmed, would become the first Muslim federal judge and the first woman of color to serve on the federal bench in Maryland, the White House said. Four of the 11 are of Asian or Pacific Islander descent.
The nominees are the first of what the White House expects will be a "steady drumbeat" of judicial nominations this year, said a senior White House official who briefed reporters on the nominations. In a statement, Biden referred to his picks as a "trailblazing slate of nominees" drawn from "the very best and brightest minds of the American legal profession.”
