Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes first Black woman to serve in U.S. Supreme Court
Camille Lenning | Entertainment Editor
Contact the author at howlentertainment@wou.edu
When liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement in 2022 after more than 27 years of service, President Joe Biden had to make good on his promise to nominate a Black woman to the highest court.
This April, after a contentious bout of Senate Judiciary Committee hearings in March, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the Supreme Court with a 53-47 majority. The official confirmation took place on April 7, making Justice Jackson the first Black woman on the Supreme Court. This development keeps the Supreme Court at its 6-3 conservative majority.
Her nomination was met with controversy from the beginning. President Biden’s opponents suggested that she was only nominated to fulfill his campaign promise, and that others could be more qualified for the position.
Justice Jackson, however, is a Harvard Law School graduate, who began as a law clerk in 1996, worked under Justice Stephen Breyer, and quickly moved through the ranks. During her prominent career, she was confirmed as a Judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where she served between 2013 – 2021. In 2021, she was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit by President Biden, where she served until her Supreme Court nomination in Feb. 2022.
Her confirmation hearings were held from March 21 – 24. While many questions throughout the process were up to par, the validity of some inquiries were questioned by the media.
One of the most infamous examples was the line of questioning brought on by Senator Marsha Blackburn, who asked Justice Jackson to provide a definition for the word “woman.” Jackson did not provide a definitive definition, stating, “I’m not a biologist,” thereby avoiding the partisan implications of the question.
Even after the controversial hearings, Jackson was voted onto the Supreme Court by all 48 Senate Democrats, both Independent Senators and three Republicans.
Jackson’s confirmation made Supreme Court history. Since its first assembly in 1790, the Court has only had five female and two Black members, excluding Justice Jackson. When she is sworn in during the summer of 2022, she will be the first Black woman to ever sit on the bench.
Her confirmation marks a turning point in the historically sparse diversity of the Supreme Court, but the narrow margin by which she was confirmed is telling of the partisan political climate the country continues to face.
