On Friday, President Joe Biden nominated Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, elevating a Black woman to the country’s highest court for the first time in its history.
Jackson will succeed justice Stephen Breyer, the most senior jurist in the Supreme Court’s three-member liberal wing. Breyer is set to retire this summer, at the end of the court’s current session.
Jackson presently sits on the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, having won bipartisan approval during her Senate confirmation last year when she was elevated from the federal district court in the District of Columbia by the US president.
A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, Jackson clerked for Breyer during the Supreme Court’s 1999-2000 term. Highlights of Jackson’s legal career thus far include her work as a public defender and her 2012 nomination to serve as a judge for the United States district court for the District of Columbia by President Obama.
Friday marks two years to the day since Biden pledged to make history by nominating the first Black woman to the Supreme Court. Biden made his vow during the 2020 primary debate in South Carolina.
