It’s not about racking up diversity statistics for its own sake; it’s about bringing a different perspective to roles that affect marginalized communities, Fulton noted. Having Cecelia Rouse, who was, from 2021 to 2023, the first Black woman to chair the Council of Economic Advisers in its 75-year history, or Shalanda Young, the first Black woman to head the Office of Management and Budget, provides a minority experience to jobs more often held by white males. Ditto Reta Jo Lewis, the first Black woman and person of color to head the Export-Import Bank, and Michael S. Regan, the first Black man to head the Environmental Protection Agency.
Biden is even outpacing Barack Obama’s two-term record on diversity in the Cabinet and courts: Obama successfully appointed 16 women to Cabinet or sub-Cabinet positions during his eight years while Biden has successfully appointed 13 in less than one term, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University. A then-record 42 percent of Obama’s judicial picks were women, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, less than Biden’s majority-female slate of court picks. Pew calculated that 36 percent of all of Obama’s judicial appointees were non-white; a Washington Post analysis in May shows the reverse for Biden: 36 percent of his overall judicial selections are white.
And of course, it was Biden who made the historic pick of Jackson to the high court. It was something civil rights advocates had hoped Obama would do but understood why it would have been risky (and he did pick two women, one of whom is the first Latina on the court). While the American public elected a man who could bring his own Black experience to the job, they didn’t always want to hear it. Witness what happened when Obama had the nerve to express his personal reaction to Henry Louis “Skip” Gates, the late Black Harvard professor, being arrested by local police after he entered his own home (a neighbor had reported a possible burglary). Obama said the Cambridge police “acted stupidly,” rightly noting that “you probably don’t need to handcuff a guy, a middle-aged man who uses a cane, who’s in his own home”—but the backlash was loud enough that he hosted an awkward “beer summit” at the White House with Gates and the arresting officer.
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Publish date : 2024-09-03 23:06:00
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