Editor:

After reading Quentin Kopp’s column in the March 2022 edition lamenting President Biden’s campaign promise to appoint a Black woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, I needed a place to cry too. Instead, I thought I would share some information with the Sunset Beacon’s readers.    

The first Supreme Court justice was appointed in 1789. Including that first appointment, a total of 115 people have served on the U.S. Supreme Court. Of that number, 112 have been White, two Black and one Hispanic. 110 were male and five female and eight Jewish.   

In October 1980 then-candidate Ronald Reagan pledged that he would name a woman to one of his first Supreme Court vacancies. In 2016 candidate Trump pledged to appoint Supreme Court justices who opposed abortion. In 2016 candidate Trump also released a list of 11 potential Supreme Court nominees – eight men and three women, all of whom were White.   
 

So, if President Biden had pledged to nominate a White female anti-abortion justice that would have been okay? Or is it only okay for Republican presidential candidates to make promises about Supreme Court nominees? And, really, isn’t it about time, after 233 years, that we had a Black woman on the Supreme Court?   

And I do agree with one point Quentin made. He wrote that President Biden’s pledge would exclude “Jews, Asians, Native Americans, Hispanics, Whites and males of any type” without mentioning the representation of some of these groups on the Court. Well, I agree, it is time for Asians and Native Americans to be represented on the Supreme Court too! 

Eileen Braunreiter