Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is Nominated by President Biden to Serve on the U.S. Supreme Court

by Lori Lakin Hutcherson (@lakinhutcherson)

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been selected by President Joe Biden to fill the U.S. Supreme Court vacancy created by Justice Stephen G. Breyer‘s impending retirement. When confirmed, Jackson will become the first Black woman to serve on the nation’s highest court of law.

Jackson, 51, a U.S. appeals court judge in Washington, has been the front runner for the Supreme Court seat ever since Justice Breyer, 83, announced last month he was retiring. Jackson was, fittingly, a Supreme Court law clerk for Breyer.

In addition to being the first Black female justice, Jackson would be the first justice on the Supreme Court to have previously worked as a public defender, something progressive groups, according to the Los Angeles Times, hope will help the court offer a different perspective.

Judge Jackson, who graduated with honors from Harvard Law School,  was born in Washington, DC and grew up in Miami, Florida. Her parents attended segregated primary schools, then attended historically black colleges and universities. Both started their careers as public school teachers and became leaders and administrators in the Miami-Dade Public School System.

When Judge Jackson was in preschool, her father attended law school. In a 2017 lecture, Judge Jackson traced her love of the law back to sitting next to her father in their apartment as he tackled his law school homework—reading cases and preparing for Socratic questioning—while she undertook her preschool homework—coloring books.

Judge Jackson stood out as a high achiever throughout her childhood. She was a speech and debate star who was elected “mayor” of Palmetto Junior High and student body president of Miami Palmetto Senior High School.

But like many Black women, Judge Jackson still faced naysayers. When Judge Jackson told her high school guidance counselor she wanted to attend Harvard, the guidance counselor warned that Judge Jackson should not set her “sights so high.”

That did not stop Judge Jackson. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University as an undergraduate, then attended Harvard Law School, where she graduated cum laude and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.

Judge Jackson lives with her husband, Dr. Patrick Jackson, who is a surgeon, and their two daughters, in Washington, DC.

Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/kbj/

[Photo: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson via thecrimson.com]