The US Supreme Court is to include a black female justice for the first time in its 233-year history after the Senate confirmed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the nine-member bench.
Three Republicans crossed the aisle to seal her appointment by a vote of 53 to 47. Justice Jackson’s appointment fulfils President Joe Biden’s campaign promise to put a black woman on the court.
Chuck Schumer, the majority leader, called it a “joyous day” for the US.
The vote was overseen by Vice-President Kamala Harris, the first black woman to hold the office.
Ms Jackson, 51, will replace Justice Stephen Breyer, a fellow liberal judge for whom she once clerked, upon his retirement in June.
The lifetime appointment will likely see Ms Jackson on the bench for decades, but will not shift the ideological balance of the current court, with its 6-3 conservative majority.
Ms Jackson has said she has a “methodology” to deciding cases but not an overarching philosophy. And she agreed with Republican senators about the importance of abiding by the text of the Constitution, as it was intended by the founders.
During her confirmation, Democrats touted her experience working as a public defender. She will be the first Supreme Court justice since Thurgood Marshall – the first black Supreme Court justice – to have career experience representing criminal defendants.
The jurist, a Washington DC native, currently sits on the influential US court of Appeals for the DC circuit. She has two degrees from Harvard University and once served as editor of the Harvard Law Review. She worked as a public defender in Washington before joining a private practice prior to her judicial appointments.
Judge Jackson 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, 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, Patrick, and their two daughters, in Washington, DC.
