Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson
Nomination:
On January 26th, 2022, Justice Stephen Breyer announced that he would be stepping down from the Supreme Court, thus allowing President Joe Biden to appoint a new successor. For the last two years, Biden has advocated for nominating the first-ever Black woman to the nation’s highest court; a nomination that is 232 years overdue. On February 28th, 2022, the White House announced that it would be nominating Ketanji Brown Jackson to the United States Supreme Court.
Education:
Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Miami, Florida, Jackson grew up with her father, a lawyer, and her mother, a school principal.[1] Jackson studied government at Harvard University, where she took classes in drama and performed improv comedy. After a student displayed a Confederate flag in his dorm room, she led protests against the student. While Jackson was in college, her uncle was sentenced to life in prison for a nonviolent cocaine conviction[2], which later influenced her legal career. After graduating with her undergraduate degree in 1992, she then attended Harvard Law School, where she was a supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review.
Legal Career:
She started her legal career with three clerkships, including one with the U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer. Jackson has held a wide variety of legal jobs, but her mid-career decision to spend two years as a public defender[3] makes her the first former public criminal defense lawyer on the Supreme Court.
Later in her career, on July 23rd, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Jackson to become vice-chair of the United States Sentencing Commission. During her time with the Commission[4], she worked to amend the Sentencing Guidelines to reduce the guideline range for crack cocaine offenses and even enacted the “drug minus two” amendment, which implemented a two offense-level reduction for drug crimes. Then, on September 20th, 2022, Obama nominated her to serve as a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Jackson has written multiple decisions on the District Court regarding the positions of the Trump Administration; a high-profile decision in which her ruling on the Committee on the Judiciary v. McGahn said that Don McGahn, the former White House counsel to President Donald Trump, would be required to testify before the House Judiciary Committee as part of its investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. She also issued several rulings regarding topics from federal environmental law to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Confirmation:
Jackson was confirmed on April 7th, 2022, and she is the first Black woman on the Court and also one of the youngest justices. She brings unique experiences not only as a public defender, but also as a federal district judge and member of the U.S. Sentencing Commission. By a vote of 53-47, the Senate confirmed Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson as the 116th justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In remarks at the White House, when Biden was introducing Jackson, he said, “For too long, our government and our courts haven’t looked like America. I believe it’s time that we have a court that reflects the full talents and greatness of our nation, with a nominee of extraordinary qualifications, and that we inspire all young people to believe that they can one day serve their country at the highest level.”
Since established in 1789, the Supreme Court has had 115 justices; 108 have been white men. Keeping his campaign promises, Biden has nominated the first Black woman to the nation’s highest court. American racial progress is slow, but her confirmation is a step forward in the pursuit of racial equality. Given the Court’s conservative stranglehold, Jackson will not alter its ideological tilt; but she will bring a depth of lived experiences that can elucidate the law and how it is applied.
