White people and men have always been represented on the Supreme Court out of proportion to their portion of the American population.

If Biden keeps his pledge and nominates a black woman, and if she is confirmed, then, for the first time, the percentage of black people on the Court (22.2%) will exceed the percentage in the population (12.1%).

Women will still be underrepresented in proportion to the population — 44.4%, instead of 50.5%.

Does 22.2% seem like too much representation for black people on the Court? Consider that there has never been even one Asian American or a Native American nominated to the Supreme Court. But also consider that many people believe that Clarence Thomas, because he is conservative, doesn't represent black people at all. 

Look how clearly Thurgood Marshall stated that position as he vacated the seat Thomas took (scroll to 2:30):

Breyer will retire!

Big news! 

I'm reading the report in the NYT:

Justice Stephen G. Breyer, the senior member of the Supreme Court’s three-member liberal wing, will retire, two people familiar with the decision said, providing President Biden a chance to make good on his pledge to name a Black woman to the court.

Oh, so there's a "pledge" and he'll need to "make good" on it. 

ADDED: We've already got affirmative action on the Supreme Court's agenda this year as we move toward the elections, and if Biden fulfills this pledge, it will intensify the political theater. He already fulfilled a black-woman pledge in selecting his Vice President, and there's a fair amount of disappointment in her. (She's got worse poll numbers than he does.) But that doesn't mean he should violate his pledge. (I'm assuming it is, indeed, a pledge.) He should elevate an extraordinarily impressive black female judge, so that the political theater is highly supportive of this kind of selection process, and the resonance with the pending cases helps the pro-affirmative-action side win favor with the people. 

ALSO: At WaPo, Neal Katyal, the former Solicitor General and a former law clerk to Breyer, has an op-ed that was all ready to go: "Breyer’s act of listening will pave the way to a healthier democracy." I thought the "act of listening" was going to be the act of listening to people who were telling him he needed to retire to give Biden a chance to nominate somebody before Republicans took back the Senate, but no, it's about judging cases:

A deep part of his listening practice was to pay attention to experts in the field. He often said federal judges are not experts on national security, or the environment, or the economy, and that a deep part of wisdom was deference to expertise. Breyer’s path was to triple check his personal impulses, and particularly so if they conflicted with the views of true experts on the question before him.

That's pretty sober and lofty, but here's how Katyal brings it in for a landing:

Consider just how different that is from the political debates today, where extremist ideology has attacked things that should be noncontroversial, from wearing masks to taking vaccines, from addressing global warming to protecting voting rights.

America stands at a crossroads. On one path is more toxic extremism, the culmination of which we witnessed on Jan. 6. Despite that armed insurrection, the path remains just as seductive as ever to many.

Armed insurrection?

The other path is quieter and more difficult to practice. It is a path forged by Breyer: respect for others, reverence for the law, and most of all, a commitment to listening to and learning from one another.

You know, if you want to be quieter and reverent and committed to listening to and learning from one another, you wouldn't have written "armed insurrection." Or "toxic extremism." This gets my "civility bullshit" tag.

And why shouldn't we be able to debate wearing masks and the best way to protect voting rights and whether we're getting accurate reports of the science about vaccines and global warming? We are not deciding cases and dictating what other people must do, the way the Court does. We're exchanging opinion in the public forum, debating and expressing ourselves! 

That's not "toxic extremism." It's toxic extremism to say that it is!

AND: From right before the 1980 election: "Reagan Pledges He Would Name a Woman to the Supreme Court" (WaPo). In June 1981, Potter Stewart announced his retirement, and Reagan got his slot to fill. I had just graduated from law school, and I remember telling my father that I was excited about the first woman on the Supreme Court. My father scoffed and said he didn't expect Reagan to make good on his pledge. He confidently asserted that the nominee would be William French Smith.

"A plan announced in 2015 to replace Founding Father Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill was reversed a year later, due in part to the massive success of Broadway musical 'Hamilton.'"

"Instead, the Treasury Department announced that a vignette of suffrage movement leaders would appear on the back of the currency — a redesign that will not enter circulation until 2026. Another effort under the Obama administration to replace Andrew Jackson, the president responsible for the 1830 Indian Removal Act, with abolitionist Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill was shelved by the Trump Administration. After taking office last year, President Biden pledged to revive the plan and 'speed up' the process, but Tubman is still not set to appear on the bill by the end of Biden’s first term, or a potential second term, The Washington Post reported. Production for new paper currency faces major holdups, driven by a need for new anti-counterfeiting features and court injunctions calling for bills to include 'meaningful access' for people who are blind or visually impaired. Coins, on the other hand, have seen frequent redesigns...."

From "U.S. quarters will feature 5 new women. What happened to other plans to change currency?/News of the program, which makes Maya Angelou the first Black woman to be featured on a quarter-dollar, was met with both cheers and criticism" (The Lily).

The "heads" side of the coin still has George Washington (as is legally required), though they've switched to a version of him facing in the other direction — sculpted by a woman. So these new images of women are on the "tails" side. I hope this doesn't lead to any arguments over coin flips. Call "heads" to be safe.

"JK Rowling faces backlash for comments on the phrase ‘people who menstruate.'"

"... Rowling said she believed that the headline should refer to women instead. Her comment was seen as transphobic, as transgender men can still menstruate."

Twitter reports on a Twitter trend that started here:

‘People who menstruate.’ I’m sure there used to be a word for those people. Someone help me out. Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?

Opinion: Creating a more equal post-COVID-19 world for people who menstruate https://t.co/cVpZxG7gaA

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 6, 2020

She followed up with:

If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.

The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women - ie, to male violence - ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences - is a nonsense.

I respect every trans person’s right to live any way that feels authentic and comfortable to them. I’d march with you if you were discriminated against on the basis of being trans. At the same time, my life has been shaped by being female. I do not believe it’s hateful to say so.

Just because you're empathetic doesn't mean that other people will be empathetic toward you. In fact, they may see you as a mark from whom more empathy can always be demanded. It's like the way they keep giving more work to the busiest person.