Joe Biden’s nominee for the supreme court, Ketanji Brown Jackson, is a 51-year-old Harvard graduate who has been a judge of the United States court of appeals for the DC circuit since June, having replaced now-attorney general Merrick Garland.
Jackson would become the first Black woman to serve on a court that once declared her race unworthy of citizenship and endorsed segregation. She will be the current court’s second Black justice, alongside conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, as well as the third Black justice in its history.
She would also be the sixth woman to serve. Her confirmation would mean that for the first time, four women would sit together on the nine-member court.
The DC circuit has historically been seen as a stepping stone to the supreme court. As a district court judge, Jackson has issued multiple high-profile rulings.
In addition to being the judge who sentenced the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist to four years in prison, Jackson ruled against the Trump administration’s attempt to protect Don McGahn, a former White House counsel, from testifying before Congress. She wrote: “Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded history is that presidents are not kings.”
From 2010 to 2014 Jackson served as vice chair of the United States Sentencing Commission, during which the commission significantly reduced sentences for numerous drug offenders.
Born in Washington and raised in Miami, Jackson clerked for three federal jurists before reaching the bench, including Justice Stephen Breyer himself. As a public defender, she was paid by the federal government to represent criminal defendants who were unable to afford their own lawyers.
During her time as a public defender, Jackson worked on multiple Guantanamo-related cases. One of the clients she was assigned to represent was Khi Ali Gul, an Afghan detainee at the American naval base.
From 2002 to 2004, Jackson worked for Kenneth Feinberg, the attorney who was known for his role as the special master of the US government’s 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund.
In 2016, Barack Obama interviewed Jackson as a possible nominee after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.
In 2020, Jackson praised Breyer during a virtual conference, saying that he “opened doors of opportunities” by hiring law clerks from diverse backgrounds. “As a descendant of slaves, let me just say that, Justice [Breyer], your thoughtfulness in that regard has made a world of difference.”
For his part, Breyer sang Jackson’s praises in 2013 when she was being sworn in as a district court judge, saying, “She sees things from different points of view, and she sees somebody else’s view and understands it.”
She has received plaudits from across the political aisle, including from former House of Representatives speaker Paul Ryan, whose brother-in-law is her husband’s twin brother. At Jackson’s 2013 Senate confirmation hearing, Ryan said, “Now our politics may differ … but my praise for Ketanji’s intellect, for her character, for her integrity, it is unequivocal.”
During her 2020 confirmation to the DC circuit court of appeals, several Republican senators – South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski, joined Democrats in confirming her seat.
Jackson would join the liberal minority of a conservative-dominated court that is weighing cutbacks to abortion rights and will be considering ending affirmative action in college admissions and restricting voting rights efforts to increase minority representation.
