DIVERSE ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION — President Joe Biden kept his campaign promise and nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Black woman, to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retiring Justice Stephen G. Breyer. If confirmed by the Senate, Jackson, 51, would become the first Black woman to be a Supreme Court Justice. “I’m thrilled to hear the news,” said Sahar Aziz, a professor of law and Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar at Rutgers University Law School. “I think it’s long overdue for there to be a nomination of an African American woman to the Supreme Court. There have been multiple women who have been qualified for decades now. The current nomination is welcome news to many of us who value and understand the importance of having diversity in the judiciary.” A highly esteemed federal appeals court judge, Jackson went to Harvard College and Harvard Law School. She has worked in private practice and as a public defender, the latter experience proving unusual among Supreme Court Justices, noted some experts. “Judge Jackson brings more diversity to the bench than just the fact that she will be the first Black female to join it,” said Renee Kafee Jefferson, a professor of law and the Joanne and Larry Doherty Chair in Legal Ethics at the University of Houston Law Center. “Among her incredible experiences is her time as a federal public defender. That matters because public defenders represent individuals who are facing criminal charges and can’t afford a lawyer. And we know more often than not, those are individuals of color.”