Nation: Biden begins drive to reshape the courts.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday nominated a racially diverse and overwhelmingly female group to federal and other judgeships, including three Black women for the U.S. courts of appeals, one pathway to the Supreme Court.

Biden promised as a candidate to nominate an African American woman to serve on the nation’s highest court should a seat open up during his term.

With the announcement of his first slate of judicial nominees, Biden signaled his intent to counter his predecessor’s reliance on white men to fill openings on the federal bench, and to appoint judges who bring a broader range of background and life experience to the role.

Several of Biden’s nominees served as public defenders. One is a former military prosecutor. Nine of the 11 are women. The slate also includes a nominee for the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

Biden’s group includes candidates who, if confirmed by the U.S. Senate for lifetime federal appointments, would be the first Muslim federal judge in U.S. history, the first Asian American Pacific Islander woman to serve on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and the first woman of color to serve as a federal judge for the District of Maryland.

Three of the picks are Black women whom Biden wants for the federal courts of appeals, often a steppingstone to the Supreme Court. The most prominent of the trio is U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, whom Biden is nominating to the seat left vacant on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by Judge Merrick Garland’s departure to become attorney general.

The two other Black women Biden wants for the appellate circuit are Tiffany Cunningham, 44, for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, based in Washington, and Candace JacksonAkiwumi, 41, for the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.