South Carolina is trading its all-male Supreme Court for an all-white one

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina is about to trade its all-male state Supreme court for an all-white one.

The General Assembly, which picks almost all state judges, is expected Wednesday to elevate Court of Appeals Judge Letitia Verdin to the high court. The white woman will take the seat of Chief Justice Don Beatty, who has reached the mandatory retirement age of 72. Beatty is Black.

Verdin is the only candidate left after two others dropped out when they realized they couldn’t get enough votes in the 170-seat Legislature. One candidate was a Black woman and the other was a white man.

“She will be an excellent Supreme Court justice. I’m glad we now have that diversity present,” said Sen. Tameika Isaac Devine, an African American Democrat who was a law school classmate of Verdin. “But we shouldn’t trade diversity. We need to take a look across the court system.”

HISTORY OF DIVERSITY

Over the past 17 years — and all but seven years since 1984 — South Carolina has had a Black judge on its highest court. Either a woman or a Black man has been chief justice for all but one of the past 30 years.

Ernest Finney became the state’s first African American circuit judge since Reconstruction in 1976. Eight years later, civil rights leaders hailed his ascension to the state Supreme Court.

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