Filling a Supreme Court vacancy is one of the most sacred duties that the Constitution bestows upon the president. Unfortunately, President Joe Biden has decided to adopt a critical race theory approach to fill the vacancy created by Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement.
Instead of evaluating candidates based solely on merit, the president is leading a discriminatory selection process in which anyone who doesn’t check certain racial and gender boxes need not apply.
Biden first promised to consider only black and female candidates during a 2020 primary debate because he was desperate for Rep. James Clyburn’s support. Biden’s craven gimmick may have paid off in terms of winning Clyburn’s endorsement, but in doing so, Biden stained himself with the noxious tenets of identity politics.
By overwhelming majorities, the public rejects Biden’s identity politics-driven approach to filling Justice Breyer’s seat. According to an ABC poll, 76% want the president to “consider all possible nominees.” Americans don’t like race and sex discrimination, yet Biden is embracing it in his Supreme Court search.
No one objects to the idea of Biden choosing a black woman to sit on the Supreme Court, but his choice to disqualify all other candidates automatically on the basis of race and gender is antithetical to the Constitution and decades of anti-discrimination laws.
Respected liberal jurists, including Sri Srinivasan (who heads the U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C.), would typically be on a Democratic president’s short list but aren’t even under consideration. This lack of interest isn’t because the Biden White House believes those jurists are unqualified, but simply because they aren’t a particular race and gender.
This is blatant discrimination. The Left would like you to believe that only “white males” are harmed by this discrimination. But Biden is also barring black males, white females, Hispanic females, Asian males, etc. from his race and sex quota scheme.
White House and DOJ lawyers involved in Biden’s discriminatory Supreme Court selection process should be reminded that bar ethics rules prohibit race and sex discrimination and, generally, other misconduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice.
Biden is compromising the judges he is now considering by having them participate in a discriminatory selection process. And whomever Biden nominates will be one of the biggest victims of his misconduct, because her nomination will be the product of a discriminatory process regardless of her credentials.
In a 50-50 Senate, Republicans certainly have the numerical strength to push back against this corrupt process. The Senate cannot ethically abide in Biden’s discriminatory Supreme Court confirmation process.
It may be tempting to dismiss Biden’s discrimination as a one-off example of politics run amok, but the truth is that he is marching in lockstep with far-left discriminatory policies across the nation.
In cities, states, and in the White House, the Left is engaged in an anti-constitutional attack on our laws and policies against race and sex discrimination. In Asheville, Judicial Watch recently forced the city government to remove discriminatory provisions from a scholarship program and discriminatory eligibility guidelines from a grant program. In California, the state is fighting to uphold a gender-quota law that forces public corporations to have a certain number of female board members on their boards of directors.
Race and sex discrimination are barred by federal law and the Constitution. Biden can cloak his blatantly discriminatory search process in whatever language he likes, but rhetoric can’t hide the vile fact that the president is discriminating against certain candidates purely on the basis of their race and sex. And, in doing so, he is handicapping his nominee and undermining the rule of law on discrimination in a way that hasn’t been seen in nearly 60 years.
Tom Fitton is president of Judicial Watch.
