Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson became U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Thursday, making history as the first Black woman to serve on the high court, The 51-year-old Jackson is also the first justice since Thurgood Marshall, who retired in 1991, with criminal defense experience. And her ascension marks another first: All three justices appointed by Democratic presidents and currently serving are women. It’s also the first time in the Court’s history that white men are in the minority, for what it’s worth.
In her opening statement at her confirmation hearing, Jackson told the senators, “During this hearing, I hope that you will see how much I love our country and the Constitution, and the rights that make us free. I stand on the shoulders of many who have come before me, including Judge Constance Baker Motley, who was the first African American woman to be appointed to the federal bench and with whom I share a birthday. And like Judge Motley, I have dedicated my career to ensuring that the words engraved on the front of the Supreme Court building—‘Equal Justice Under Law’—are a reality and not just an ideal.”
Those are ideals that the entire Court should be striving to uphold.
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In nominating Jackson, President Joe Biden said, “I looked for someone who like Justice Breyer has a pragmatic understand that the law must work for the American people, someone who has historical perspective to understand that the Constitution is a resilient charter of liberty, someone with the wisdom to appreciate that the Constitution protects certain unalienable rights that fall within the most fundamental personal freedoms that our society recognized, and in the end someone with extraordinary character who will bring to the Supreme Court an independent mind, uncompromising integrity, and with a strong moral compass and the courage to stand up for what she thinks is right.”
Jackson demonstrated all of those qualities and more as she sat through racist, disgusting attacks from Republicans, hour after hour after hour. As Laura Clawson wrote, “racism was so prevalent in the hearing that the way it hovered was, COVID-like, in the air after belching out of the mouths of Republican senators like Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz.”
Unfortunately, that might prove to have been a warm up for what she’s going to have to face in her new job. Because the majority of the court isn’t all that removed from Hawley and Cruz. Case in point: Clarence Thomas writing in an official Court document that COVID vaccines were developed with the use of "aborted children."
So, congratulations Justice Jackson. This achievement is well-deserved and groundbreaking and the single light shining out of the Supreme Court this session. But also, condolences. We’ll keep trying to make it better for you.
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