Capital B News: Biden Appoints 40 Black Women as Federal Judges, Breaking Record
Issues
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on December 10, 2024.
The cultural presence means that some judges are entering federal jurisdictions where few, if any, people of color have served on the bench before.
“There are still courts in the Southern states that still don’t look like … the people they serve because Republican senators have blocked all kinds of diverse nominees, or any nominee from the Democratic president,” said Carolyn Leary Bobb, vice president of communications for Alliance for Justice, a progressive group that advocates for judicial diversity.
Nancy G. Abudu, a Biden appointee who was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in May 2023, is the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which is based in Atlanta and considers cases in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia.