Biden’s Supreme Court pick: latest in two centuries of milestones

President Joe Biden named Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Friday, honoring a pledge to appoint the first Black woman in US history to the nation’s highest judicial body.

The hallowed institution’s 115 appointments have been far from groundbreaking on diversity — but the court touts several important milestones in its storied 233-year history.   

– First Catholic (1836) –

Known for a strident personality that compensated for his fragile physical stature, Roger Taney was the leader of the “Coodies” movement in the Federalist Party that supported the War of 1812. 

Elected to the Maryland Senate in 1816, he eventually became a staunch supporter of the Democrats and president Andrew Jackson, and became the first cabinet nominee ever to be rejected by the Senate. 

Jackson nominated Taney to replace Gabriel Duvall on the Supreme Court in 1835 and he was rejected again, only to succeed chief justice John Marshall 10 months later.

– First Jewish justice (1916) –

Democratic president Woodrow Wilson picked Justice Louis Brandeis on June 5, 1916. Although he was the first of eight Jewish justices to be seated on the court, he was not the first offered the post. 

Judah Benjamin rejected the nomination from president Millard Fillmore in 1853. 

Melvin Urofsky’s biography of Brandeis describes the justice, who retired in 1939, as one of the most important and distinguished justices to sit on the court.

– First Black justice (1967) –

Thurgood Marshall, nominated by Democratic President Lyndon Johnson, served until 1991, when he was replaced by Clarence Thomas, the only other Black justice in Supreme Court history.

LBJ didn’t make a big deal of the landmark moment, however, as he announced the nomination in 1967. 

“I believe he earned that appointment; he deserves the appointment,” Johnson said. “He is best qualified by training and by very valuable service to the country.”

– First woman (1981) –

It was Republican icon Ronald Reagan who finally corrected the court’s shameful history of having never sat a female justice.

Sandra Day O’Connor was appointed by the conservative president in 1981 and sat until her retirement in 2006. She is among just five women to have served as justices.

“Society as a whole benefits immeasurably from a climate in which all persons, regardless of race or gender, may have the opportunity to earn respect, responsibility, advancement, and remuneration based on ability,” O’Connor once said.

– First Hispanic supreme court justice (2009) –

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama in 2009 and still serving, is the only Hispanic Supreme Court justice to date.

She described herself during a panel discussion in the 1990s as “a product of affirmative action.” 

“I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx,” she said. “My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale.”