I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, February 9th.

Any day now, President Biden is expected to announce his nominee for the Supreme Court to succeed Justice Breyer when he

retires at the end of this term. The president has made clear he will nominate the court's first

black woman. Once upon a time, President Ronald Reagan placed the first woman of any background

on the Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor. She's retired now and still alive at 91.

Reagan in his lifetime certainly expressed his pride at having a hand in that milestone.

In fact, in his campaign for the presidency in 1980, he made as explicit a pledge as Biden has now.

Reagan said this. During my campaign for the presidency, I made a

commitment that one of my first appointments to the Supreme Court vacancy would be the most

qualified woman that I could possibly find. Now, this is not to say that I would appoint a woman

merely to do so.

That would not be fair to women, nor to future generations of all Americans whose lives are so deeply affected by decisions of the court.

Rather, I pledge to appoint a woman who meets the very high standards that I demand of all court

appointees.

I have identified such a person.

So that was the moment that he nominated Sandra Day O'Connor. So listeners, would you call

these nominations examples of affirmative action? As it happens, the Supreme Court has also

recently announced that it will hear a new challenge to its own precedence on affirmative action in college admissions in lawsuits against Harvard and the University of North Carolina. Interesting and important confluence of events, right? Biden's stated intention and these lawsuits coming right now.

Georgetown University law professor, Paul Butler, is also a contributing columnist to the Washington Post,

and he has a column basically called, I once told a Supreme Court Justice that I was a recipient of affirmative action.

We'll invite him to tell that story

here now and also invite your stories of being recipients of affirmative action as we

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