PD Editorial: Justice Jackson’s historic moment

It’s official: Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will become Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson — and the nation’s highest court will look a little more like America.

When the U.S. Supreme Court convenes in October for its next session, a Black woman will sit on the nation’s most powerful and influential court for the first time.

Jackson’s confirmation as the 116th associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court is a milestone worthy of celebration. Her qualifications are stellar, and so was her perseverance during a Senate confirmation hearing that featured Republican senators asking inane questions about children’s books and womanhood while trying to malign Jackson as soft on child pornography by distorting her record.

In the end, only three GOP senators — Susan Collins of Maine, Mitt Romney of Utah and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — joined the 53-47 vote to confirm Jackson. All three expressed grave misgivings about the increasingly partisan tenor of Supreme Court confirmations. It is an unhealthy trend for the court and for the country, and the effects are reflected in polls showing sharply rising public disapproval of the court.

Fortunately, few people were swayed by the attacks on Jackson. In a Gallup poll prior to the Senate committee hearing, 58% favored her confirmation. Support jumped to 66% in a Marquette Law School poll conducted after the hearing.

Given her credentials, Jackson should have been unanimously confirmed, just as Sandra Day O’Connor, the first woman appointed to the Supreme Court, was unanimously confirmed in 1981. President Joe Biden fulfilled a campaign promise by naming Jackson to the court, just as Ronald Reagan kept his own pledge by choosing O’Connor.

In explaining his vote to confirm Jackson, Romney offered an aspirational model for future nominations: “While I do not expect to agree with every decision she makes on the Supreme Court, I believe that she more than meets the standard of excellence and integrity.”

Jackson will become the fourth female member of the court when she succeeds Justice Stephen Breyer, one of her mentors, who is retiring at the end of the present term.

Like her new colleagues, Jackson was a top student at an elite law school. She went on to be a Supreme Court clerk and a federal judge at the trial and appellate levels. In addition to being the first Black woman on the court, she stands out as the third justice to graduate from a public high school and the first to work as a public defender.

Jackson’s presence will not alter the 6-3 conservative majority on the court, but she will bring a perspective to its deliberations that has been missing for 233 years. At age 51, she may serve long enough to become part of a future majority.

Her ascendance has meaning far beyond the mahogany bench in the court’s grand chamber across the street from the U.S. Capitol. Women, especially women of color, still face barriers to advancement in academia, business, justice and other institutions. As we pointed out on Friday, California, a deep blue state with a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, has yet to elect a woman governor. Now, following a Senate vote announced by the nation’s first Black vice president, one more glass ceiling has been shattered.

Congratulations, Justice Jackson.

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