Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s pending retirement gives President Biden the opportunity to make his first appointment to the Supreme Court, rejuvenating the court’s liberal minority and diversifying the bench overall.
Biden, who pledged to diversify the Supreme Court, has already made progress on lower courts
Updated January 27, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. EST|Published January 27, 2022 at 4:48 p.m. EST
Diversity of confirmed federal judges,
by president
Biden
42 judges confirmed so far
22
7
11
2
The Senate has confirmed 22 minority women
appointed by President Biden, 7 minority men,
11 White women and 2 White men.
Trump
229 judges in one term
Minority
men
Minority
women
11
26
148
44
White
women
White
men
Obama
324 judges in two terms
48
68
88
120
Bush
324 judges in two terms
21
37
50
216
Clinton
372 judges in two terms
21
69
85
197
Diversity of confirmed federal judges, by president
Biden
Trump
42 judges confirmed so far
229 judges in one term
Minority
men
Minority
women
22
7
11
26
11
2
148
44
White
women
White
men
The Senate has confirmed 22 minority
women appointed by President Biden,
7 minority men, 11 White women and
2 White men.
Obama
Bush
Clinton
324 judges in two terms
324 judges in two terms
372 judges in two terms
48
68
37
21
21
69
50
85
88
120
216
197
Diversity of confirmed federal judges, by president
Trump
Biden
229 judges in one term
42 judges confirmed so far
Minority
men
Minority
women
22
7
11
26
11
2
148
44
White
women
White
men
The Senate has confirmed 22 minority women
appointed by President Biden, 7 minority men,
11 White women and 2 White men.
Obama
Bush
Clinton
324 judges in two terms
324 judges in two terms
372 judges in two terms
48
68
37
21
21
69
120
50
216
85
88
197
Biden nominated as many minority women to be federal judges in four months as Trump had confirmed in four years, and he now has placed twice as many minority women on the federal bench as his predecessor.
As of Jan. 26, 42 of Biden’s appointees have been confirmed by the Senate. Of those, 33 are women, and 29 identified as Black, Asian, Native American, Hispanic or multiracial.
He has appointed only two White men as Article III judges, a category that includes Supreme Court justices and federal circuit and district judges. The U.S. Constitution stipulates those judges be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
On the shortlist of potential nominees for the Supreme Court is Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, who was confirmed last year to the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit as one of Biden’s first judicial nominees.
Three Republicans joined all 50 Democrats to approve Jackson’s nomination, 53 to 44.
About this story
Federal judges data comes from the Federal Judicial Center. Article III Federal Judges have been considered for this analysis. Each judge has been counted only once for each president’s total.
Racial and ethnic identifiers for sitting judges were self-reported by the judges to the Office of Legal Policy in the Justice Department. For this analysis, judges that identified themselves as Black, Asian, Native American, Hispanic or multiracial were categorized as minority judges.