Washington Post: Biden is diversifying the bench. But he needs more seats to fill.
This excerpt is from a piece that originally ran on July 30, 2023.
A stunning 30 percent of Biden’s confirmed judges have been African American (including one Supreme Court justice), in contrast to a paltry (3.85 percent) under Trump and 17.93 percent (still in excess of the percentage of Black people in the population) under Obama. Biden has appointed more African American women to circuit court seats than all previous presidents combined.
The comparison for Hispanics is likewise dramatic: Biden 15.71 percent, Trump 3.85 percent and Obama 9.73 percent. Biden has seated double the percentage of Asian American judges that Trump or Obama did. With the federal bench heavily dominated by former prosecutors, Biden set out to name more public defenders. “In total, Biden has nominated 41 public defenders to the federal bench, including 12 to the nation’s appellate courts, according to the Alliance for Justice,” according to Reuters. He has also named a number of prominent civil rights attorneys to judicial posts, including Dale Ho, Julie Rikelman, Tiffany Cartwright and Jessica Clarke.