Update: This story was updated at 1:30 pm with the Senate’s confirmation of the judge.
Washington — The US Senate confirmed the appointment to the Supreme Court of Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, breaking a historic barrier by securing her place as the first black female justice and giving President Joe Biden bipartisan support for his effort to diversify the highest court.
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Following a 53-47 vote, with three Republican votes, Jackson will take the place of Justice Stephen Breyer, who retired him in the middle of the year, rejuvenating a diminished liberal wing of the conservative-dominated court.
Jackson, a 51-year-old appeals court judge, would be only the third black member of the court following Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman. She would join two other women, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, on the liberal wing of a court where Conservatives edge Liberals 6-3. And along with Amy Coney Barrett on the other wing, four of the nine members would be women, something unprecedented in history.
In her hearings last month, the judge told senators that she would apply the law “without fear or favoritism.”
