Posted Apr 10, 2022, 11:18 AM
We can’t wait for the day when, during an appointment, the sex or skin color of the applicant will no longer be highlighted, and when we will be content to talk regarding his merits. Nevertheless, Ketanji Brown Jackson will go down in history as the first black woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court in the institution’s 233-year history, sixth woman and third black judge.
Her nomination matches a campaign promise by President Joe Biden to appoint “a black judge” to the Supreme Court. The resignation of Judge Stephen Breyer, 83, gave him the opportunity to fulfill his promise before the end of the mid-terms which risk seeing the Senate tilt in his favor. However, the approval of the House had to be obtained. This was given to him sparingly and Brown Jackson’s audition was particularly heckled. His whole career, however, led him there.
The Ivy League Train
At 51, educated following the civil rights movement, she was the first generation of black Americans to enter the elite of the Ivy League. At Harvard, she shines in the eloquence contests (and meets her husband, a WASP surgeon). “The Harvard-Yale train continues to roll relentlessly towards the Supreme Court,” quipped a Republican senator. Daughter of a lawyer and a school director, who themselves suffered segregation, she forged her knowledge of the legal system, working on both sides of the fence.
After a lightning debut at the Supreme Court as legal assistant to Judge Breyer, she alternated between the public and the private sector as a lawyer for large firms. She will be the first Supreme Court justice to have criminal defense experience. Her appointment in 2009 by Obama as vice-president of the Federal Sentencing Commission further accelerated a career that is reaching its apotheosis today.
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