President Trump officially announced Judge Amy Coney Barrett as his nominee to replace the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If confirmed, she will not only become the sole conservative female justice, Barrett will also make history as the first mother of school-aged children to sit on the high court.
There will be plenty of heated debate over her credentials and to what extent positions held by those on both sides of the political aisle have completely changed from what they were in 2016 when then-President Barack Obama nominated Judge Merrick Garland. But one thing still remaining true is that when it comes to appointments to the Supreme Court, black women are still nowhere to be found.
From the highest peak I’ve long yelled that Trump should nominate Hampton University grad and first African American woman to sit on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Allyson Kay Duncan. But Duncan has since retired and at the age of 69, makes her selection unlikely even during a Trump second term.
According to Associated Press research of Federal Judicial Center data, there are only five black women appeals court judges. This means that out of the 179 circuit court judgeships authorized by Congress, black women comprise about 2.7%.
This number is even more deflating when you consider how the U.S. Courts of Appeals provide presidents with most of their options for Supreme Court appointees. To better put this into perspective, Elana Kagan is the only current justice who had not previously sat on one of the 13 circuit courts. Black women are 11.4% of the U.S. population, but less than 3% of appointments made to the circuit courts. This number has remained low throughout both Republican and Democratic administrations and, not too surprisingly, is also reflected in the overall number of those who get those prized clerkships after law school. These coveted slots are still offered overwhelmingly to white men. And although she was a groundbreaking progressive jurist, the late Justice Ginsburg herself hired only one African American law clerk.
But all is not lost.
Organizations such as the Appellate Project are actively focusing on training, access, and awareness for law students of color. As a community that has fought hard to level the playing fields of systemic injustice, it’s time for us to realize the importance of the federal judiciary and start demanding our political leaders advocate for a system that is more inclusive than the status quo.
Melik Abdul is a Republican strategist and political commentator who walked away from the Democratic Party in 2016 in support of Donald. J. Trump.
