Despite not having the opportunity to name a justice to the Supreme Court during his one full term as president, Jimmy Carter left behind an unparalleled judicial legacy.

The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg frequently cited his appointment of female and minority justices as the first president to greatly diversify the lower federal courts.

In 1980, Carter appointed Ginsburg to a significant US Court of Appeals in Washington, setting the stage for her eventual promotion to the Supreme Court.

A compilation of judicial selections by the Congressional Research Service indicates that his presidency was the first in which women accounted for a sizable portion of confirmed circuit and district court nominees. Forty-one of the people he appointed during his one-term presidency were women.

Twelve of his 59 circuit court appointees and 29 of his 203 district court appointees were women. Only two women had ever been appointed to circuit court and six to district court positions before to Carter's administration.

Ginsburg, who passed away in 2020, said in one address that there was no going back once Carter nominated women to the bench in large numbers.

It would be challenging for the other justices to gather casually, with robes off, shoes off, and shirt collars unbuttoned, to discuss their issues and reach conclusions if there was a female justice. Ginsburg went on to mention the previous resistance to women serving on the bench when former President Harry Truman, who presided over the country from 1945 to 1953, brought up the subject of a female justice.

Carter appointed a record 57 people of color to the bench in addition to the 41 women judges he appointed to the federal judiciary. These individuals included future notable federal appellate judges like Leon Higginbotham, who served on the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia; Amalya Kearse, who served on the 2nd Circuit in New York; and Damon Keith, who served on the 6th Circuit in Cincinnati.

Carter's efforts to diversify the bench were commended by civil rights activists. However, it was also "important for improving the legitimacy and quality of judging," according to Sherrilyn Ifill, a law professor at Howard University and a former director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

"The nation was ready for it," Carter said, downplaying his part in the pattern that broke under barriers.

Carter, however, was never given the chance to take a seat on the Supreme Court. He is the only president to have served an entire term without being appointed. However, his focus on selecting minority and female judges might have increased pressure on Ronald Reagan to promise to choose the first woman to the Supreme Court in 1980 when he was running against Carter.

“The most qualified woman I can find will fill one of the first Supreme Court vacancies in my administration,” Reagan declared at a Los Angeles gathering in October 1980.

"Equal rights for women involves more than just one job for one woman," Carter said at the time, dismissing the pledge as a cynical vote-buying gimmick.

Reagan fulfilled his pledge and nominated Sandra Day O'Connor a few months after he declared his intention to run for president in 1981.

The second woman was Ginsburg, Carter's previous appellate court pick, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993.