Who's Afraid of Ketanji Brown Jackson? by Sherrilyn A. Ifill
'The nomination of the first Black woman to serve on the Supreme Court is a long overdue moment of historic consequence. Another glass ceiling has been shattered — and at the most powerful judicial institution in our country. In its 232-year history, only seven of the 115 justices who have served have not been white men. When she is confirmed, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will be the eighth.
For Black women in particular, the powerful symbolism of her nomination runs deep. We felt it as we watched a spectacularly accomplished Black woman with natural hair speak eloquently about her parents — both former public schoolteachers who attended historically Black colleges and universities — and about the strength of her faith and ambition that she needed to overcome the inadequate expectations of many around her.
Judge Jackson comes with unassailable traditional credentials that rival those of the chief justice with whom she will serve. But she also comes with unique perspectives and experiences — as a former public defender, as a member of the United States Sentencing Commission, as a Southerner and as a Black woman — that have shaped her vision of the law in ways that are underrepresented, to put it mildly, on the current court. . .
But that outrage and now the embarrassingly anemic effort to challenge the qualifications of Judge Jackson are important to understand for their own symbolism and significance.
This was evident in earlier confirmation hearings when Judge Jackson was asked by Senator Tom Cotton, “Have you ever represented a terrorist at Guantánamo Bay?” and about race in her decision making by Senator John Cornyn, “What role does race play, Judge Jackson, in the kind of judge that you have been and the kind of judge that you will be?” We have seen these tactics before.
“Are you prejudiced against white people in the South?” In 1967 this question was posed by the notorious segregationist Senator James Eastland of Mississippi to the solicitor general of the United States, Thurgood Marshall, on the occasion of his confirmation hearing to the Supreme Court. Justice Marshall was, of course, the most consequential lawyer of the 20th century. His work and leadership of the team at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund resulted in the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which hastened the end of legal apartheid in the United States.
Obviously, there could be only one answer to Senator Eastland’s question. But the purpose of the question was not to elicit an answer. That said, Justice Marshall handled it superbly: “Not at all. I was brought up, what I would say way up South in Baltimore,” he responded. “I don’t know, with the possible exception of one person,” he added, “that I have any feeling about them.” . .
she has the potential to widen the perspective that is brought to how these issues are debated and discussed at the court’s conference. This is how change begins — by destabilizing comfortable narratives, . . .
There will be inspiring moments, and there will be ugly and unwarranted attacks during Judge Jackson’s confirmation hearing. But she will be confirmed. And something on the court, and in our expectations of it, will change.'
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/opinion/whos-afraid-of-ketanji-brown-jackson.html
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