Ketanji Brown Jackson made history as the first Black woman and the first public defender to join the U.S. Supreme Court. Jackson, 51, was sworn in as the Court’s 116th justice during a ceremony attended by her husband and children
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson Photo: The Washington Post/The Washington Post via Getty Images On Thursday, . Jackson’s ascension to the Court doesn’t change its ideological divide and arrived at the tail end of a polarizing session that included the overturning of Roe v. Wade and threats to other constitutional rights, including same-sex marriage and contraception access.
Jackson featured on President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court short list in 2016 and, according to NPR’s June 2021 assessment, had been a “hot prospect” for Biden’s nomination. On the campaign trail, he talked about naming a Black woman to the bench, which has historically remained overwhelmingly white and male. Jackson was previously confirmed three times by a bipartisan majority in the Senate: to the U.S. Sentencing Commission, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and the U.S.
Jackson served as vice-chair of the United States Sentencing Commission between 2010 and 2014, retroactively reducing thousands of crack-cocaine-related sentences and cutting sentences for many other types of federal drug offense.
Her views on abortion Jackson takes her seat on the Court days after it revoked the constitutional right to abortion. During her hearings, she was asked whether she agreed with Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who during their confirmation hearings said Roe v. Wade “is settled as a precedent” and vowed to “obey all the rules of stare decisis,“ respectively. .
According to Chairman Dick Durbin, Jackson has “done what 80 percent of judges” have done and is “in the mainstream of sentencing” in these cases.