Co-founder of She Will Rise says 'it's beyond time' we have the first Black woman on SCOTUS – US News about Policy, Capitol Hill and State Legislatures

President Joe Biden has vowed to fill the next empty Supreme Court seat with a Black woman. Of course, Republicans are masking their innate racism by calling foul, and churning up their respective bases with cries of affirmative action.

Just Saturday, Sen. Ted “The Almighty Hypocrite” Cruz took to his YouTube channel to talk about Justice Stephen Breyer’s retirement, calling Biden’s vow to nominate a Black woman “offensive.”

But the fact is, never in the history of America have we had a Black woman nominated and confirmed to the Supreme Court of the United States. As co-founder of the She Will Rise initiative, Brandi Colander, tells Daily Kos: “It is beyond time.” Despite the GOP’s tactic of calling affirmative action, Colander says it is “classically, laughably reductive,” and “we’re not going to take the bait.”

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She Will Rise was founded two years ago by Colander, along with April Reign, Kim Tignor, and Sabriya I.Williams. Together these powerhouse women formed a movement dedicated to nominating and confirming the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. The name of the organization was inspired by poet and Presidential Medal of Freedom Award winner Maya Angelou, based on her famed poem Still I Rise.

“We are four Black women who very much love America and decided we were not going to look outside of ourselves to fill a void,” Colander says.

She adds, “We decided we needed to create something that would help people understand why they needed to care and why this is not like a lofty, unattainable thing they shouldn’t be thinking about. We make it clear why it matters and why this representation is material to making America’s promise of democracy real.”

The organization has also done a hard push to inspire and engage communities through the power of visuals, with a mural in Washington, D.C., and a photoshoot with a group of Black girls dressed in robes with doilies when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg died, all in an effort to further the notion that Black girls have big dreams and someday the court will look like them.

“There’s a long tale around helping people understand the importance of this moment and why this seat belongs to her,” Colander says about the initiative and the process of nomination to confirmation.

Why choosing a Black woman benefits all Americans

As Colander rightfully points out, the Supreme Court is designed to be “illustrative and representative of America,” and the fact this nation has never had a Black woman on the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) “clearly does not meet that promise.”

The history of U.S. presidents choosing to fill a Supreme Court seat with a specific gender or race isn’t a new concept. Former President Ronald Reagan vowed to nominate the first woman—hence we have Justice Sandra Day O’Conner. The twice-impeached former President Donald Trump seemed determined to get a qualified right-wing conservative woman on the Supreme Court, and during his one term, he nominated now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

“We should all want a more representative court,” Colander says. “One of the things that is unique about being a lawyer and in the judiciary in general is you can’t deny that you are basically being asked to bring your experience, your lived and shared experience as an American, in the room when you are rendering decisions,” she adds.

The importance of choosing a Black woman specifically

Black women are three times more likely to die during childbirth than any other demographic—even in 2022. Black women make $0.63 on the dollar compared to white men. Not to mention incarceration rates for Black Americans in general and the ongoing issue of voting rights being challenged.

“That’s why this matters so much. It goes back to the way this nation was built, quite frankly, which is a history we just can’t run from,” Colander says.

Creating a pipeline

One name that’s been floated (among several) is U.S. Circuit Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Colander says that the fact that Jackson was a clerk of Breyer’s is a “beautiful testimony to the importance of pipeline,” meaning that potential nominees are primed and ready to be put in place.

“One of the things the Biden administration has done remarkably well has been to push the pipeline forward so that you have 62 diverse judges that have been moving forward. I think 19 of them have been women of color. Really a watershed moment for the judiciary. So we’re going to focus on the wins.”

A year ago, She Will Rise created a shortlist for Supreme Court nominees.

The list includes Michelle Alexander, visiting professor of social justice at Union Theological Seminary; North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley; Elise Boddie, professor of law at Rutgers University; Kristin Clarke, president and executive director with the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls; and Fatima Gross Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, to name a few.

Keep the pressure on them

Colander says it’s important to remember that Coney Barrett was seated in 27 days, so it’s possible to go through this process quickly. However, she adds, no one can be let off the hook.

“One of the things that was so disheartening for me personally—and I would imagine for many others, irrespective of skin color or your political affiliation, frankly—was that when it came to voting rights, the focus was overindexed on two individuals who have had no accountability.

“I have been in public service, have spent an extensive amount of time working in coal country, helping to draft legislation to put a billion dollars into coal country through the Reclaim Act, which would largely benefit white rural Americans. I mean, you check that stuff at the door when you’re really serious about public service.

“There’s not a universe where I could imagine not doing the right thing here to make sure that everyone had the ability to exercise and utilize our democracy,” Colander says.

“So when it comes to the system working, it simply cannot work if one side of the aisle refuses to play ball. And that’s what we continue to see time and time again. No one on the right or the left should be left unaccountable. You’re being sent to D.C. to vote, period.”

It’s high-time politicians from both sides of the aisle recognize

Black women deliver for Democrats. From showing up at the polls to supporting policies and laws that improve the lives of all Americans, everyone from former President Bill Clinton to Biden and others have relied on the support of Black women in office, on the ground, and the votes of Black women.

”The truth here is that this is a demographic that is used to having this red meat dangled in front of us and not honored. There is a history of disrespect of the Black community around these promises and these commitments, and disrespect of Black women that is intimately felt. And if it’s not honored, I do question how things will play out in terms of political support and just across the board,” Colander says.

The time was yesterday

“In my lived experience, history has told me that, especially when it comes to systemic change around social issues, it has required all deliberate speed. Those two words ring in my soul. Deliberate speed to have any sort of advancement from inequality and from an equity perspective. It is not something that can sit on the shelf and get stale. It needs to have happened yesterday.

“We cannot afford to play political games. We need to have practitioners in place who are ready to run the distance. And there are plenty of qualified Black women who could take that seat tomorrow,” Colander says.