Judge Ketanji becomes first black woman to be nominated to US top court in 232 years

Washington: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the US Supreme Court by the US president Joe Biden is said to be the first time a black woman is to be elevated to the country's apex court in its 232-year history.

Brown Jackson will replace Stephen Breyer, 83, who will retire at the end of the court's current session this summer. The report suggests that Biden's decision to elevate a black woman could trigger a debate in the deeply partisan and evenly-divided Senate.

Announcing Jackson's nomination, Biden said that she is the daughter of former public school teachers" and a "proven consensus-builder" who has displayed "a pragmatic understanding that the law must work for the American people".

Her nomination comes exactly two years to the day after Biden, struggling miserably in his third campaign for the presidency, vowed to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court if elected president.

He also said that with Jackson's appointment, the US court reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation.

Jackson, who was widely considered a frontrunner for the nomination, sits on the powerful US court of appeals for the DC circuit, after winning bipartisan approval during her Senate confirmation last year, when Biden elevated her from the federal district court in the District of Columbia.

Born in the nation's capital and raised in Miami, Jackson clerked for Breyer during the Supreme Court's 1999-2000 term. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.