The United States Senate confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court on Thursday, breaking a historic barrier by making her the first black female justice and giving President Joe Biden bipartisan endorsement in his effort to diversify the Court.
Jackson will take over when Justice Stephen Breyer retires this summer, consolidating the court’s liberal wing dominated by conservatives (6-3).
During the four days of Senate hearings, Jackson spoke of her parents’ struggles against racial segregation, saying her “path was clearer” than theirs as a black American after the enactment of civil rights laws.
Jackson attended Harvard University, served as a public defender, worked at a private law firm, and was appointed to the United States Sentencing Commission. She told senators that she would apply the law “without fear or favor,” and rejected Republican attempts to portray it as too lenient on the criminals she had sentenced.
Jackson will be the third black person on the Supreme Court, after Justices Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, and the sixth woman to sit on the highest court in the country. She will join three other women, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett, meaning four of the nine judges will be women for the first time ever.
Her entry will not change the balance, but it will secure a legacy on the Court for Biden and fulfill his 2020 campaign promise to nominate the first black female judge.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said before the vote that Jackson’s confirmation would be a “joyful day, jolly for the Senate, jolly for the Supreme Court, jolly for America.”
Despite efforts to tarnish his record, Jackson ultimately won three Republican votes. The final count was far from the overwhelming bipartisan confirmations by Breyer and other justices in decades past, but it was still a significant bipartisan achievement for Biden in the 50-50 split Senate after Republican senators worked to paint Jackson as too liberal. and soft on crime.
Statements from Senators Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitt Romney of Utah underscored the possibility that they might not always agree with her decisions, but acknowledged that she was enormously well-qualified for the job.
Once sworn in, Jackson will be the second youngest member of the Court after Barrett, 50. She will join a Court where no one is yet 75 years old, the first time this has happened in almost thirty years.
The Senate session was presided over by Vice President Kamala Harris, the first black woman to hold that high office.
