US President Joe Biden has officially nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the US Supreme Court.
She will become the first Black woman to ever sit on the Supreme Court bench when she is likely confirmed by the Senate, and will replace the retiring Justice Stephen Breyer.
Jackson will be the third Black person appointed as a Supreme Court judge in history, and the sixth woman. Her confirmation will bring the number of women on the current Supreme Court bench up to four (out of nine members), the most ever at one time in history.
Announcing Jackson’s nomination at the White House, alongside Vice President Kamala Harris, Joe Biden said she was one of America’s “brightest legal minds”.
“For too long, our government, 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,” Biden said.
Biden said he had looked for someone “like Justice Breyer who has a pragmatic understanding that the law must work for the American people.”
Who is Ketanji Brown Jackson?
Ketanji Brown Jackson is a 51-year-old Harvard law graduate and public defender, who has been a judge on the US court of appeals for the DC circuit since June.
Early in her career, Jackson worked as a clerk for retiring Judge Stephen Breyer, the man she will replace on the Supreme Court.
In 2009, she was appointed by President Obama to serve as the Vice Chair of the US Sentencing Commission, with her work focused on reducing unwarranted sentencing disparities and ensuring sentences were just and appropriate.
She will be the first former federal public defender to serve on the Supreme Court.
In 2012, she was nominated to be a district court judge on the US District Court for the District of Colombia and was confirmed with bipartisan support. She was then one of President Biden’s first judicial nominees, when he chose her for the court of appeals for the DC circuit.
With her nominated to the Supreme Court, Jackson will replace one of her mentors, liberal Justice Stephen Breyer, who was appointed to the court by President Bill Clinton in 1994. Jackson is considered likely to be confirmed by the Senate. Her appointment will not change the ideological make up of the court, which now leans 6-3 to the conservatives.
Posting to Twitter, former U.S President Barack Obama congratulated Jackson on her nomination.
“Judge Jackson has already inspired young Black women like my daughters to set their sights higher, and her confirmation will help them believe they can be anything they want to be,” Obama said.
Jackson is well respected across all sides of politics in the United States, and has earned support from significant Republican figures including from former House of Representatives speaker, Paul Ryan.
“Our politics may differ, but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, for her integrity, it is unequivocal,” Ryan said.
In accepting her nomination, Jackson said she was “humbled by the honour of this extraordinary nomination”.
She thanked Justice Breyer for giving her “the greatest job than any young lawyer could ever hope to have”.
“He exemplified every day in every way that a Supreme Court justice can perform at the highest level of skill and integrity while also being guided by civility, grace, pragmatism, and generosity of spirit,” she said. “Justice Breyer, the members of the Senate will decide if I fill your seat but please know I could never fill your shoes.”
Jackson also paid tribute to Judge Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman appointed as a federal judge.
“As if happens, I share a birthday with the first Black woman ever to be appointed as a federal judge, the Honorable Constance Baker Motley. We were born exactly 49 years to the day apart. Today I proudly stand on Judge Motley’s shoulders, sharing not only her birthday, but also her steadfast and courageous commitment to equal justice under law,” Jackson said.
“If I’m confirmed as the next associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, I can only hope that my life and career, my love of this country and the Constitution and my commitment to upholding the rule of law and the sacred principles upon which this great nation was founded, will inspire future generations of Americans.”