A lot has been said about President Joe Biden’s pledge to appoint an African-American woman to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer. A poll conducted by ABC-Ipsos found that 76% of those surveyed want the president to consider “all possible nominees,” while 23% prefer that he only consider Black women. Ilya Shapiro, the newly hired executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for the Constitution, was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into whether Twitter messages he posted last week suggesting that Biden’s promise to choose a Black woman would ensure a “lesser” nominee violated the university’s professional conduct, discrimination, and harassment policies.

I think it is fine for President Biden to promise to fill Justice Breyer’s seat with an African American woman. After all, years ago Ronald Reagan pledged that, if elected president, his first nominee to the nation’s highest court would be a woman. Reagan kept his word when he nominated Sandra Day O’Connor, and that turned out well.

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