An African American woman, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, is to be nominated later today, Friday, 25 February by President Joe Biden to a higher office. She will succeed Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court, according to three sources familiar with the matter, quoted by nbcnews.
If confirmed, Jackson would, according to the report, become the first Black woman to serve on the court. “At 51, she would also be the second-youngest justice on the current court (Justice Amy Coney Barrett turned 50 in January) and the first justice since Thurgood Marshall with significant experience as a defence lawyer. As the successor to Breyer, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, Jackson would not change the court’s current 6-to-3 conservative supermajority.”
Biden called Jackson on Thursday night to offer her the nomination, according to a source familiar. Biden and senior White House staff were, as NBC News put it, notifying key officials and individuals of the decision Friday morning.
The nomination comes exactly two years after Biden made his promise during the 2020 presidential campaign to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who had been encouraging Biden to nominate J. Michelle Childs, a U.S. District Court judge in South Carolina, tweeted that Jackson’s nomination “means the radical Left has won President Biden over yet again.”
Childs was also the favourite of Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., a close ally of Biden. She came under scrutiny from some progressives and union leaders for her time working on behalf of employers against worker claims.
“I expect a respectful but interesting hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee,” Graham continued. “The Harvard-Yale train to the Supreme Court continues to run unabated.”
Graham is one of the three Republicans — along with Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — who voted for Jackson during her previous confirmation.
Jackson was nominated to District Court just eight months ago and was confirmed by a 53-44 vote with the support of three Senate Republicans. Only David Souter, appointed by George W. Bush, came to the Supreme Court with less time on the federal appeals court — under five months in his case.
But Jackson also served eight years as a federal trial judge in Washington. At her confirmation hearing for that position, she received an endorsement from former House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who is related by marriage. (Her husband’s twin brother is married to the sister of Ryan’s wife.)
“Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, for her integrity, is unequivocal. She is an amazing person,” Ryan said.
Ketanji Onyika Brown was born on September 14, 1970, in Washington, D.C. Her parents were both graduates of historically black colleges and universities. Her father, Johnny Brown, ultimately became the chief attorney for the Miami-Dade County School Board; her mother, Ellery, served as school principal at New World School of the Arts. Jackson grew up in Miami, Florida, and graduated from Miami Palmetto Senior High School in 1988.
After high school, Jackson studied government at Harvard University, graduating in 1992 with an A.B. magna cum laude. When she was in college, her uncle was sentenced to life in prison due to a nonviolent cocaine conviction. Years later, Jackson persuaded a law firm to take his case pro bono, and President Barack Obama eventually commuted his sentence. Another uncle served as Miami’s police chief. During her time at Harvard, Jackson led protests against a student who displayed a Confederate flag from his dorm window.
Jackson worked as a staff reporter and researcher for Time magazine from 1992 to 1993, then attended Harvard Law School, where she was a supervising editor of the Harvard Law Review. She graduated in 1996 with a Juris Doctor cum laude.
Career
After law school, Jackson served as a law clerk to Judge Patti B. Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts from 1996 to 1997, then to Judge Bruce M. Selya of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1997 to 1998. She spent a year in private practice at the Washington, D.C. law firm Miller Cassidy Larroca & Lewin (now part of Baker Botts), then clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1999 to 2000.
Jackson worked in private legal practice from 2000 to 2003. From 2003 to 2005, she served as an assistant special counsel to the United States Sentencing Commission.
From 2005 to 2007, Jackson was an assistant federal public defender in Washington, D.C., where she handled cases before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. A Washington Post review of cases Jackson handled during her time as a public defender showed that “she won uncommon victories against the government that shortened or erased lengthy prison terms.”
From 2007 to 2010, Jackson was an appellate litigator at Morrison & Foerster.