As the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court has ignited a discussion about the historic lack of diversity on the nation's highest court, her ascendance has also renewed focus on the absence of Black judges on the federal judiciary's lower courts.
Of the 3,852 people who have been confirmed as federal judges, a CNN analysis of data from the Federal Judicial Center shows that only 240 of them -- 6% -- have been Black. Just 71 of them have been Black women. More than three-quarters of all the judges have been White men. And while strides have been made in recent years to improve the demographic makeup of the federal bench, the judiciary still skews dramatically toward White, male judges, especially when compared to the rest of the country.
So, it takes a lot of time to shift the demographic composition of the bench through the appointments process," Hawkins told CNN, adding that because vacancies are so limited, there are often far more qualified judicial candidates than there are seats to fill. The lack of diverse representation on the bench also has a negative impact on the de facto pipeline in which aspiring judges climb the legal profession ranks.
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