President Joe Biden soon gets to keep a promise made during his 2020 campaign, when he vowed to make the first nomination of a Black woman as a U.S. Supreme Court justice. His chance to fill one of the nine seats comes now because Justice Stephen Breyer, 83, said last month that he'll retire this summer when the 2021-22 term ends. He has been on the highest court since 1994, when President Bill Clinton sent his name to the Senate for confirmation.

If senators confirm the new choice, expected to be announced any week now, the court will have four women for the first time. (The others are Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Amy Coney Barrett.) And get this: The newcomer will be just the eighth justice in the court's 233 years who isn't a white man. Adding a Black woman is "long overdue, in my view," the president says.

Still, Biden feels pushback even before introducing his pick for the lifetime appointment. "A lot of people would be delighted to see a Black woman on the court, but not because she's a Black woman," writes New York Times columnist Bret Stephens. "The standard should be the best legal mind, period, not to create a court that better resembles our overall demographic makeup." More than a few Republican senators share that view. "Black women are, what, 6 percent of the U.S. population? He's saying to 94 perecnt of Americans: 'I don't give a damn about you. You are ineligible,'" says Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who calls Biden's approach "offensive" and "an insult to Black women." Democrats will need to uniformly back the nominee to confirm her in the evenly divided Senate, with Vice President Kamala Harris ready to cast a tiebreaking vote in the case of a 50-50 party line split.

President says: "I'm not looking to make an ideological choice." – NBC interview last week

Republican critic says: "The irony is that the Supreme Court is at the very same time hearing cases about this sort of affirmative racial discrimination, while adding someone who is the beneficiary of this sort of quota." – Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss.

Columnist says: "Every time an excluded group is included, that is good for the institution and its credibility." – Charles Blow, The New York Times