This is to fill the seat vacated by Justice Kavanaugh. Lemme see, female [check] minority [check]. I suppose because Rao is conservative those two criteria do not matter.

A quick bio from Wiki states she "Rao was born to mother Zerin Rao and father Jehangir Narioshang Rao, both  Parsi  physicians from India^[3], and raised in  Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where she was educated at  Detroit Country Day School  (class of 1991).^[4]  After graduating from  Yale University  with highest distinction in ethics, politics, economics, and philosophy, Rao attended the  University of Chicago Law School, where she was a member of the  Order of the Coifand received her  J.D.  in 2000. She was the comment editor of the  University of Chicago Law Review, and executive editor of the  Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy  for the  Symposium  edition. Rao  clerked  for U.S. Supreme Court Justice  Clarence Thomas^[5]  from 2001 to 2002, and Judge  J. Harvie Wilkinson III  of the  United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit  from 2000 to 2001.

After her clerkships, she practiced public international law and arbitration at British law firm  Clifford Chance  in  London, United Kingdom. During the second term of  the presidency of George W. Bush, Rao worked in the White House counsel's office and as a staffer on the  Senate Judiciary Committee.^[5]  Later, she became a professor at George Mason University School of Law (subsequently renamed the  Antonin Scalia Law School, a change for which she advocated),^[5]  where she received tenure in 2012. In 2015, she founded the Center for the Study of the Administrative State.^[6][5]

She is a member of the  Administrative Conference of the United States  and the governing council of the  American Bar Association's Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, where she co-chairs the section's regulatory policy committee.^[1][7]  She is a member of the  Federalist Society.^[8]

TRUMP NOMINATES SUCCESSOR TO KAVANAUGH

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/11/trump-nominates-successor-to-kavanaugh.php