Last Friday, President Biden announced his nominee to fill retiring Justice Stephen Breyer’s place on the Supreme Court: Judge Kentaji Brown Jackson. If confirmed, she would be the first Black woman to sit on the nation’s highest court, a glass ceiling which Biden pledged to help break when Breyer announced his retirement.
Since June of last year, Jackson has served as a federal judge on the DC court of appeals, and she has a rich history of legal service behind her. From 2013 to 2021, Jackson worked as a judge on the United States District Court. She has also clerked for influential judges, including Breyer himself in 1999, and worked as both a public and private defender. In fact, if confirmed, she would be the only Supreme Court Justice to have a history in public defense, bringing a unique understanding of criminal justice that some argue is currently missing from the nation’s highest court.
Jackson is known for writing meticulous, thorough, and often lengthy opinions, with few reversals. She handed down one of her most high-profile opinions to date during the tumultuous fallout from Robert Mueller’s report under the Trump administration. The case Jackson oversaw involved Trump’s instruction that former White House counsel Donald McGahn refuse to comply with a Congressional subpoena. Her 118-page opinion ruled that McGahn had to cooperate with the House’s investigation, and that Trump’s attempt to stop the constitutional function of Congress was an obstruction of justice. “Presidents are not kings,” she wrote in her decision, a phrase which became synonymous with protecting democracy.
Biden chose Jackson from a pool of three judges that also included federal District judge of South Carolina J. Michelle Childs and Leondra Kruger, a Justice on the California Supreme Court. All are highly qualified, so Jackson’s recent experience with the confirmation process, as well as built-in ties across the political aisle—she’s related by marriage to former Republican leader Paul Ryan—may have given her Biden’s favor. Chuck Schumer, Democratic majority leader of the Senate, expressed his hopes that Jackson would have bipartisan support, after calling her an “amazing” choice.
Though Jackson’s confirmation would be historic, her background is also consistent with the majority of Justices on the Supreme Court today. With the exception of the most recent appointee Amy Coney Barrett, all of the current Supreme Court Justices graduated from Ivy League law schools, with four from Harvard and four from Yale. Jackson is no exception, having graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University and cum laude from Harvard Law School.
In the leadup to her confirmation hearing, Jackson has made herself available to hold meetings with members of the Judiciary Committee or any other members of Congress interested in talking with her. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has already interviewed her and publicly expressed his skepticism of her relatively shorter appellate experience, signaling that Republican Senators may oppose her confirmation. As a replacement for Breyer, a fellow liberal-leaning judge, however, Jackson is unlikely to change the ideological makeup of the court. Her hearings, scheduled to begin on March 21, will be a litmus test for how much partisan bias will continue to influence the judicial branch of government. But regardless of the political circumstance, Jackson’s confirmation would be a powerful moment in the history of American law and justice, and hopefully, an inspiration for future generations.
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