US courts
“Historic”: First black judge on the Supreme Court
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson made history in the United States. Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP/dpa
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The US Senate has confirmed Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first black female Supreme Court Justice. A success for US President Biden, but the conservative majority in the Supreme Court remains.
President Joe Biden’s administration has hailed as historic the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first black female Supreme Court justice.
“This is a historic day for the White House and for the country,” Biden spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Thursday. “And it’s the fulfillment of a promise the President made to the country.” During the election campaign, Democrat Biden promised that if he won, he would nominate a black woman for the US Supreme Court for the first time. In February he had presented Jackson as his candidate. The Senate confirmed the liberal lawyer for the office on Thursday.
The confirmation of the 51-year-old does not change anything about the conservative majority on the Supreme Court – it replaces the liberal judge Stephen Breyer (83), who is retiring. Jackson has yet to be sworn in. It is unclear when exactly she will take over. Breyer announced in January that he plans to retire by the court’s summer recess in late June or early July. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and Jackson want to appear together in front of the press on Friday (12:15 p.m. local time/6:15 p.m. CEST) in the garden of the White House, as the US government announced.
Biden’s first candidate
Judge Breyer’s resignation announcement allowed Biden to nominate his own nominee for the Supreme Court for the first time. His Republican predecessor Donald Trump was able to place three judges there. Six of the nine judges are currently considered conservative.
Jackson received 53 of the 100 votes in the Senate on Thursday. Three moderate Republicans voted with the 50 Democrats in the House of Representatives. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he was “enthusiastic” after the vote. He said: “It’s been a long, hard road trying to get more equality and less narrow-mindedness in America. And there are often regressions. But when you experience a day like this, it spurs you on to keep going.”
Biden had described Jackson as one of the “cleverest lawyers in our country” and spoke of a “historic candidate”. Supreme Court justices are appointed for life. Their selection is a highly competitive political process. With its decisions on controversial issues such as abortion, immigration or same-sex marriages, the Supreme Court repeatedly sets the course for US society.
Little diversity at the Supreme Court
At the Senate hearing, several Republicans accused Jackson of being too left-wing politically and of having been too lenient as a judge in the past. Jackson had stressed her independence and impartiality. She will be the 116th Supreme Court judge. According to an overview by the broadcaster CNN, 108 white men, two black men, four white women and one Latina have served as judges on the US Supreme Court. Currently, Clarence Thomas, an African American, and Sonia Sotomayor, a Latina, sit on the Supreme Court.
Jackson has been a judge since 2013, and since 2021 on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Capital District. She studied at the elite university Harvard and has also worked as an attorney and public defender.